What’s so special about Juventus’ pink jersey? Universally loved
I like to imagine footballers, before their weight-room training sessions, standing thoughtfully in front of their wardrobe choosing what to wear to the gym. And in the end, almost without thinking, they end up picking a Juventus shirt. It had already happened with Mesut Özil, captured training in Juventus’ 2018/19 Home kit, and now it’s the turn of Arsenal’s left-back Myles Lewis-Skelly, who opted for a more predictable option but one that, ever since its release, has been almost universally loved: the Away shirt from the 2015/16 season, complete with Paul Pogba’s name and number on the back. A simple pink jersey, featuring a central white stripe crossed by a thin red line; an essential design, yet one capable of becoming iconic.
A shirt that has not only been worn by numerous celebrities and featured in major partnerships, but also proves how fans and enthusiasts can appreciate a kit not only for its aesthetic appeal, but also for what it represents. And the 2015/16 season represents a lot: it was the year of the Scudetto comeback, the consolidation of the BBC, the domestic treble and, above all, the eccentricity of Paul Pogba and the rise of Paulo Dybala.
Juventus: Why is the pink colour so popular?
There is another reason why Juventus’ pink shirts—rare but always meaningful—hold such fascination. Since 2003/04, the 2015/16 one is essentially the only true pink shirt used consistently, except for the so-called 2012/13 Hello Kitty kit, which horrified many fans (perhaps also because of an oversized sponsor, Balocco). But the colour pink has been part of Juventus’ history since day one: the team’s first kits, in the early 1900s, were pink with a black tie. And this connection was also celebrated on 8 September 2011, when Juventus inaugurated the Juventus Stadium by inviting Notts County, the club that had inadvertently contributed to the adoption of black and white more than a century earlier. Yet what made headlines that evening was not so much Luca Toni’s first goal in the new stadium, but the feeling that Juve was finally legitimising a century-old relationship with the English club: at the end of the 19th century, Juventus’ team colour was pink because fabrics in that shade were the easiest for the club to find. Later, in search of a more durable kit—after realising that pink faded quickly—the club decided to abandon it. John Savage, an English member of the club, then turned to a Nottingham friend, who sent him black-and-white striped shirts, the colours of Notts County.
The 2015/16 Away shirt
As already mentioned, the 2015/16 Away shirt is one of the most appreciated in Juventus’ very recent history, at least among those released in the last decade. Part of its growing fame can be attributed to the collaboration between Humanrace (the brand founded by Pharrell Williams) and Juventus, one of the clubs selected for the adidas 2020 Humanrace Football Jerseys line. That moment generated broad interest in the kit: Lil Peep, Rihanna, Drake and Jonah Hill all wore it, leaving us some of the earliest historical traces of what, a few years later, we would come to call blokecore. They also helped make that shirt truly iconic and still highly sought after today, as the Myles Lewis-Skelly case shows—and if we really think about it, it is quite unusual to see a player from a European top club (Arsenal in this case) wearing the shirt of a club like Juventus.
The return of the pink shirts
If the classic leak portals have already repeatedly spoken of a return of pink in Juventus’ Third kit for the 2026/27 season, it should also be noted that such a comeback would step onto a field already well cultivated: a 2024 report by Fanatics confirmed that Inter Miami’s home jersey—one of the few clubs to play with a home kit in that colour tone—is the best-selling 2024 shirt among MLS teams, largely thanks to Lionel Messi. Wherever Inter Miami play, at home or away, the stands are filled with hundreds of number-10 Messi jerseys.
And then the most recent case: the Germany Away shirt worn by the national team at Euro 2024, which became the fastest-selling away jersey in Germany’s history.
