BEHIND THE DESIGN: An Inside Look at the Creation of the New England Patriots Rivalries Uniforms

BEHIND THE DESIGN: An Inside Look at the Creation of the New England Patriots Rivalries Uniforms

A noraster is coming to Gillette Stadium. It’s a different look. I think it’s pretty sweet. The NFL put out a series of rivalry uniforms for some big games. Alternate jerseys for some premier franchises. We always love a good rivalry game. I love New England. A little bit of a throwback to the Bledsoe era. Nike is doing new uniforms and they’re changing it up this year for rivalry games. It’s going to be a really fun campaign. I think the fans are going to love it. Sometime around July of 2023, the NFL came to owners and presidents of the clubs and introduced the NFL rivalries concept. We know that there’s that added, you know, excitement for a rivalry game from the team and also the fan base. And the NFL thought, what a great way to really get fans engaged. So back in 2023, they reached out to the Patriots as one of eight teams that would create a rivalries uniform for 2025. They basically split the country in half. So, okay, we’re going to do AFC East and NFC West and roll it in in other divisions next year. And over the next four years, more divisions will come online. The desire there was to create a program that involved releasing a new uniform for each club that told a story about your team. So for us, the rivalries program was really all about kind of figuring out what is in our DNA and what’s in the core of a New England Patriots fan. And the first step was looking at our current uniform closet. What what about our uniforms did we like? Did we not like? What was missing? We also looked at other sports, other professional teams, international teams. The first order of business was to to kind of circle the wagons a little bit. We got a focus group together to try to just get flow of ideas. And I think what Ally did from her perspective was really gain a lot of input. It wasn’t just someone deciding what this was going to be. It was it was really an effort by a lot of people. From then on, we had a I’d say a pretty fast follow with the NFL and Nike where we got on the phone with a lot of their representatives and their creative team. They actually came to a game and ironically it was the game that Brady was coming back for the first time. It was interesting because they they got to experience not only an entirely excited and amped up crowd but you know the weather that day was really sort of what they came away with really poor weather, cold, raw, rainy. The kickoff was actually fantastic in terms of all that coming together for them and them going back and creating a mood board. The mood board was imagery of the New England coast of lighouses of of shipping and and boating gear. And we were like, “Yeah, this is the right this is the vibe we want to go for.” And so as we started walking through that process, we kind of wanted to make sure the uniform had a a story behind it and had a theme. Dealing with the four seasons, the challenging weather, and we thought using the noraster as sort of a an underlying theme to the design made a lot of sense. We were excited because we felt like the mood board that they presented to us really sort of hit the mark in terms of direction, but when we got the first round of creative, we weren’t really moved. So, the initial concepts, I think we got them in like February 2024, and they were all silver or gray, like that was sort of the primary color, kind of going into that foggy um you know, New England coastline sort of feel. And when we saw them, we just thought we’d seen them before. It wasn’t nothing was, you know, hitting for us. It was just the gray I think was really just too dull. This journey represents New England as a whole. It’s going to be short, but to have the input, you know, you got to think of like how cool can this really be? We felt like it was an opportunity to kind of push push the limits a little bit. So, the feedback we gave to them was just that. um would like to be a little bit more aggressive uh in terms of what changes we make and to what elements of the uniform. A lot of the mood board imagery that we gave Nike had a lot of that sort of blue like rugged worn out feel to it. We just all kept going back to this really, you know, muted sort of color. And so we said, “Hey, could we look at doing something with with this blue?” And then they came back with the next round. This was in the spring of 2024 with what we now have as the main color in what we call storm blue. At the time we called it diffuse blue and it really sort of stopped us and we were like, “Yeah, I think that’s going to work.” And it was more the narrative behind it in addition to the uniqueness of the color that we really kind of grabbed on to. One thing that I think is really special about our rivalry uniform is we’re wearing a whole different color than anybody else. Most of the teams that did this went pretty much white or black. Ours is not even in our regular color palette. It’s completely unique and different and I think for that reason it’s special. The uniform has so many unique symbols and and the symbolism we felt was really important to to the design of the overall uniform. We’ve won six Super Bowl championships. We have six New England states here. So incorporating that into the uniform and we did that through the red stars on on the collar of the jerseys, you know, the the saying we are all Patriots is something that we’ve used since the 2001 Super Bowl when Mr. Craft gave his speech. We are all Patriots and tonight the Patriots are world champions. And so that was something that we wanted to display on the uniform but felt it was probably most appropriate to do it kind of inside the neckline. So every time one of those players went to put that uniform on, they saw that and and they had that mentality of we are all Patriots. So there was all these little elements that they tried to drive in, but also honor the history of the team and the uniform. A lot of people wanted us to bring the ’90s uniform back. They thought that’s what this would be. But this program in particular is not about throwbacks. This is about designing something new. Maybe someday there’ll be a time where we wear the Royal Blues again. This just isn’t that program. That said, uh you know, we wanted to give that a little nod. So, the number set, that italicized number set, kind of is a nod to, you know, that ‘9s jersey. Dwight designed the NE logo on the shoulder, which he used a compass as sort of the inspiration there. There’s an any mark that they kept pushing us. Um, it was a shoulder hit on the uniform. It just the we love the idea of it. So, we kind of did we took that internally and came up with some sketches and sent them back. Um, and when we deployed that on the uniform, we’re like, “Oh, that’s cool.” Just these little really unique designs that were thoughtfully incorporated and and really come to life when I think you see close-ups of the uniform. I think one of the biggest points of emphasis for us was really making sure that the team was going to react to it positively. Given that we couldn’t really upfront share designs with the players and and get their feedback, we kind of leveraged stick and and dev. When Ally said call me, she was like, “Hey, I need to come look at something.” I go up there and I was like, “Oh, okay. Here we go.” You got to think like a player. Like, okay, how would this look if we put this on, you know, cuz when you’re looking at a board or you’re looking at a screen or you got something laid out on a mannequin, it’s way different than a person’s wearing it. We were picking out socks and helmet. Like we got in on the helmet aspect of it and trying to figure out what helmets to use, what uh what finish on the helmet with face mask. Devin specifically, he’s a helmet guy. So like he had all kinds of great ideas for the helmet. Um not only just like color, but also like would the face mask be chrome? Would it be metallic? You know, just the little details that Devon’s fabulous has been doing it for a long time and stick the same way. like he you know they they’re equipment guys but they’re uniform guys. They they really are passionate about what they do. So we were calling around trying to get some samples from different places. So like I was calling some of my old college connects like hey we thinking about doing this. Can I get a face mask so we can you know see different ideas at least or what the vision was. We kind of tweaked it a little bit. Not a lot you know white socks, blue socks. What looks good you know just like the odd and end pieces. At one point, we were able to get the uniform in front of a couple of players and have them help us make these final decisions. Ellie wanted an opinion and I was like, “All right, who can we bring up?” And uh Reandre and we had Antonio Gibson was still in and I just remember going down to the locker room and looking at them like, “Hey, you you come see right quick. Top secret. I need y’all to come follow me for a second.” And they did. And and they they gave their opinion. Oh, they thought, “Oh, this is cool.” like, you know, I was like, “Oh, can we just can this be our primary uniform?” Like, no. They liked the the direction that we were going with the with the helmet. They gave their opinions and I think everybody kind of flowed with it uh with that. And we I think it’s the what what we all decide on is the product that you’ll see on the field when uh on that Thursday night. So from the moment like we got the helmets done to wheeling it down to the to the tunnel for the photo shoot like let me dry the boot. You see it on the on the hangers and you’re like okay. And then like you finally see the guys in it and it’s like yo this look really good. Like like I mean I’m biased but I’m like we might have the best robbery uniform in football right now. Where the hell y’all seen these? Oh, he did see. You can go in here, change in there if you want. There I go. I don’t even know what type of blue this is. Storm blue. Storm blue. Storm blue. Is that what we’re calling it? Yeah, I like that. I like that. I think kind of the first thought with the the storm blue is uh it’s a different look. I think it’s uh it’s pretty sweet. Act like you guys like each other. All right. Got six stars, six Super Bowl. we need to add like one more pilot. Like I liked it a lot. Uh as soon as I saw it, I liked it. The history of the AFC East is great and you know there’s a lot of rivalries in our division and the atmosphere is always right when we have a division game and so I think it’s it’s awesome to have these uniforms. Seeing some of the jerseys in the crowd has been awesome and I’m looking forward to um you know putting them on and putting them you know to real use. When we saw the final product it was kind of deep breath. We kind of all sat there on this call and looked at it and kind of all at the same time nodded and said, “We feel like we really nailed it.” Already we’re seeing it in the stands. We’re, you know, seeing it out in public. I think that basically says, you know, we’ve kind of hit it. I can’t remember a program that received this kind of attention. This many people being brought into the process, this many people being consulted for opinions. So to see that come to fruition is probably one of the most special things I’ve been a part of here in 20 years. We were first, but it was also a first for the league and it was also a first for Nike. So I think one of the things that I feel good about too is just kind of being a part of the process that helps the league and and Nike moving forward for the next four years uh of rolling this out across all 32 teams. To be a part of designing a new uniform for your hometown team is pretty special. Um, I think there’ll be some goosebumps on November 13th, Thursday night football when I see the team run out on the field in them. Yeah, it’s cool. It’s a It’s a pinch me moment. Been doing this for a long time, but when when you’re a part of something like this, you you realize how lucky you are to be involved. To have watched the team and watch the attention to detail and wanting to make sure that every last element of the uniform was perfect. Um, was just fun to be part of the process and and to be surrounded by people who were so passionate and cared so much about bringing this to life and and making it stand out.

A behind the scenes look into what went into the full design and creation of the New England Patriots 2025 Rivalries uniforms from start to finish.

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