North London-inspired Tottenham third kits officially released

Say what you want about Tottenham’s away and third kits — they certainly aren’t boring. After having the design and details leaked months ago, Tottenham Hotspur and Spurs Women finally released their purple and white third kits to the public for sale this morning, possibly before their on-pitch debut in the Europa Conference League against Stade Rennais.

Continuing on the “let’s throw something crazy at the wall and see what sticks” design ethos that also resulted in Nike’s paint swirl away kits, this one features a “striking purple design [that] celebrates the vibrancy of the Club’s N17 neighbourhood.” According to the release on Spurs’ website, the third kits’ design was inspired by several creative youths from North London who were mentored at a local art studio. The design isn’t actually BY the youths, but “inspired by” their inspiration. Or something like that. Weird that they took inspiration from the young kids but didn’t actually let the kids design the kits themselves.

I don’t really understand why kit designing companies like Nike feel the need to construct an entire backstory for their shirts. It’s not especially needed. Good (or bad) design can simply be good (or bad). I don’t necessarily need my weird quasi-quartered Spurple and Cream kits to have some kind of intricate cultural connection to a particular neighborhood to be kinda dope.

And these are, in fact, kinda dope. At least they are to me. They’re certainly interesting, though like any kit design there’s guaranteed to be at least 30% of Spurs fans who are going to think they’re garbage (or will until they get to the Champions League final wearing one, come at me Green Third Likers).

Anyway, you can buy them now on Tottenham’s website, and my guess is the timing of this release is because we’re very likely going to see them in action in Rennes this evening.