Arsenal's Africa-inspired away kit tells the story of their unique connection to Black culture

Arsenal’s new away kit is designed by an immigrant.

Foday Dumbuya, the founder and creative director of London-based menswear brand Labrum, wants you to know that.

Forget the demeaning connotations foisted upon people who have put down fresh roots in a country they weren’t born in by those who seek to divide — Dumbuya’s heritage is a point of pride, so much so that Labrum has used “designed by an immigrant” as a slogan on numerous products.

In collaboration with Arsenal’s usual kit supplier Adidas, Labrum has dressed manager Mikel Arteta’s side for away games next season, creating a kit that pays homage, directly, deliberately and unashamedly, to the club’s players and fans shaped by the African diaspora.

Predominantly black with red and green details to mimic the Pan-African flag, Arsenal’s away kit also boasts panels with a black-and-white zigzag design, intended to represent the flow of people who emigrated from African nations in the 1920s and the art that came with them.

This is not a football kit that only Black people can wear but it is designed to tell a story, and this project, which shines a light on Arsenal’s connection to Black culture, wouldn’t have been the same if it involved another Premier League club.

Fashion brands collaborating with recognised manufacturers to make kits is nothing new.

Juventus’ fourth strip in 2019-20 was co-produced by Palace, Daily Paper lent its style to Ajax’s 2022-23 third shirt, the Jamaica national team’s kits in 2023 were made in collaboration with Wales Bonner and last season, AC Milan released two strips designed in partnership with LA-based label Pleasures.

So what makes Labrum’s association with Arsenal stand out? For starters, this is the strip Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and company will likely wear at Old Trafford and Anfield in 2024-25.

This is no throwaway side collection to be quietly buried among a season’s worth of releases. As Arsenal’s primary away kit, it will be seen — and is designed to start a conversation about the club’s Black influences.

“With Arsenal, they have a huge African fanbase,” says Dumbuya, who was born in Sierra Leone and moved to London aged 12. “From when (Nwankwo) Kanu, (Emmanuel) Eboue, Kolo Toure and all those guys used to play for Arsenal; I think African fans gravitate to that because they can see themselves in those players.

“The next thing will be, ‘How we follow through with this?’. Can we connect conversations and can we influence a community of people to understand Africa as a whole, understand being Black in London, Pan-Africanism, and also the work that Arsenal has been doing for a while now?

Arsenal’s new away kit (Daniel Barnes/The Athletic)

“Sometimes, you educate yourself by seeing something and you don’t have a clue about what it means, but now you’re prompted to go and investigate it. People talk about Pan-Africanism. Now it’s in your face.”

Labrum’s name is a Latin term that loosely translates as ‘having an edge’.

Its clothes are inspired by west Africa and in 2023, Labrum won The Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, which Dumbuya received from King Charles.

Last year, ex-Arsenal and England striker Ian Wright walked the runway for Labrum at London Fashion Week. Chelsea’s Trevoh Chalobah has modelled for the brand. It has also designed clothes for Saka, Arsenal team-mate Reiss Nelson and former England international Rio Ferdinand.

When Netflix sponsored Hackney Wick FC — of Eastern Counties First Division South, tier nine of the English football pyramid — Dumbuya designed their kits. Labrum also outfitted the Sierra Leone team at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago and, in partnership with Adidas, will do so again at this summer’s Games in Paris.

Ian Wright and England rugby union star Maro Itoje have modelled for Labrum at London Fashion Week (Getty Images)

Yet designing an African-inspired Arsenal kit feels like a landmark moment for Dumbuya, who founded Labrum in 2014 and expects to see his designs worn in a game for the first time when Arteta’s side face fellow Premier League club Bournemouth in a friendly in Los Angeles on Wednesday (the early hours of Thursday UK time) to begin a three-match U.S. pre-season tour.

“I don’t know if another club would have done this, how it would transcend to those African fans, because they might not have a huge African fanbase,” says Dumbuya.

“Talking to Arsenal and Adidas, they’ve both always pioneered Black culture, Black history — from hip hop to other cultural stuff — that’s why we thought it’s a relationship and collaboration that was bound to happen.

“They chose wisely to find a brand; not just because we’re big and noisy, but more how authentic we are and that we tell stories about where we’re from, about London, and about west Africa. When things feel natural, people gravitate to it.”

How does one define the particular nuances of Arsenal’s connection to Black culture?

Lots of clubs have Black fans, of course, but Arsenal’s unique relationship is distinct, the outcome of a swathe of geological, societal and cultural factors, including the different Black heroes numerous generations of fans have seen play at the club’s former home Highbury or the Emirates Stadium.

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“I’m not an Arsenal fan per se, but I’m certainly one in the sense that I’m a Londoner and to be involved in Black identity and Black people, you have some affiliation with Arsenal at some level, be it in the playground, in the cultural spaces like the churches and the barber shop,” says Clive Chijioke Nwonka, associate professor of film, culture and society at University College London and co-editor of Black Arsenal, an upcoming book that explores the club’s place in Black British culture.

Arsenal’s players departed for their U.S. tour earlier this week wearing items from the Adidas-Labrum collection (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

“This is a shirt that attempts to celebrate what has been largely recognised, which is a movement towards Arsenal by people of the Black diaspora over a number of years — not just recently — and it’s only natural that brands and manufacturers move to that kind of space, and make it something that can be tangible and can be packaged for mass consumption.

“I think when we are talking about and describing Black culture, and Black culture production, we must also just be cognisant that what is really important is Black people and Black people’s experiences of that, which often sometimes is lost when we begin talking about brand culture.

“That being said, I am relieved that the final design was done using a Black designer, because that hasn’t always been the case.”

Authenticity matters and Arsenal, Adidas and Labrum all have a responsibility to ensure their partnership resonates.

That can be particularly difficult when a nod to culture is communicated through a piece of sportswear, a tangible item that people will purchase and wear.

The African diaspora is defined as the movement of people outside the continent and, subsequently, the people living around the world who can trace their roots back to Africa, whether that movement happened willingly or by force.

Expect to see this Arsenal away shirt. A lot. It’s bound to be popular and in 2024, football kits have evolved into desirable fashion items.

Labrum founder creative director Foday Dumbuya (Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)

It will also carry a particular weight and provide a knowing nod to Black culture, no matter who wears it and where they come from.

“I think this is something that we would struggle to conceive of and even accept if another club had done something similar but that’s also why it needs a particular form of ethics around it, and curation and description, because it can’t just be ‘business as usual — here is another brand product’,” says Nwonka.

“I welcome the shirt and I celebrate the shirt because I know that is something that’s only possible through the optics and lens of Arsenal, and no one else.

“I think the best way that I can describe this in a broad way is that the Black Africa shirt attempts to capture and materialise what is already in existence or has already been expressed. They’re not creating Black Africa. The Arsenal connection already exists. Here is something that is now able to be distributed and shared.

“Of course, there’s an economic dimension there — but that’s neither here nor there, because everything we do in terms of being fans is a transaction in many ways — but it’s capturing and packaging and kind of materialising what is already present, already expressed, already felt by people.”

“I want people always to remember the first club that actually celebrated their fanbase outside of their territory and also included everything about that particular territory, which is Africa as a whole,” says Labrum creator Dumbuya, who is an Arsenal fan.

“It hasn’t been done before. The players that came from abroad have actually changed this league and have added so much depth and culture, so when people sort of remember the kit, I’m hoping that’s what they remember — that it was a celebration of those past players and the Arsenal African fanbase.”

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(Top photos: Adidas/Labrum)