Arsenal Colour

For much of Arsenal's history, Arsenal's home colours have been bright red shirts with white sleeves and white shorts, though this has not always been the case. The choice of red is in recognition of a charitable donation from Nottingham Forest, soon after Arsenal's foundation in 1886. Two of Dial Square's founding members, Fred Beardsley and Morris Bates, were former Forest players who had moved to Woolwich for work. As they put together the first team in the area, no kit could be found, so Beardsley and Bates wrote home for help and received a set of kit and a ball. The shirt was redcurrant, a dark shade of red, and was worn with white shorts and blue socks.

In 1933 Herbert Chapman, wanting his players to be more distinctly dressed, updated the kit, adding white sleeves and changing the shade to a brighter pillar box red. The origin of the white sleeves is not conclusively known, with two possible inspirations having been put forward. One story reports that Chapman noticed a supporter in the stands wearing a red sleeveless sweater over a white shirt; another was that he was inspired by a similar outfit worn by the cartoonist Tom Webster, with whom Chapman played golf. Regardless of which story is true, the red and white shirts have come to define Arsenal and Arsenal have worn the combination ever since, aside from two seasons. The first was 1966–67, when Arsenal wore all-red shirts; this proved unpopular and the white sleeves returned the following season. The second was 2005–06, the last season that Arsenal played at Highbury, when the team wore commemorative redcurrant shirts similar to those worn in 1913, Arsenal's first season in the stadium; the club reverted to their normal colours at the start of the 2006–07 season... Since the 2008–09 season, Arsenal has slightly altered the design of their traditional home shirts, replacing the all white sleeves with a thick white stripe. The remainder of the sleeves is red.

Arsenal's home colours have been the inspiration for at least three other clubs. In 1909, Sparta Prague adopted a dark red kit like the one Arsenal wore at the time; in 1938, Hibernian adopted the design of the Arsenal shirt sleeves in their own green and white strip. In the 1930s, Sporting Clube de Braga's coach returned from a game at Highbury and changed his team's green kit into a duplicate of Arsenal's red with white sleeves and shorts, giving rise to the team's nickname of Os Arsenalistas. These teams still wear these designs to this day.

Arsenal's away colours are traditionally yellow and blue, but there have been exceptions. Arsenal wore a green and navy away kit between 1982 and 1984, and since the early 1990s and the advent of the lucrative replica kit market, the away colours have been changed regularly. During this period the designs have been either two-tone blue designs, or variations on the traditional yellow and blue, such as the metallic gold and navy strip used in the 2001–02 season, and the yellow and dark grey used in 2005–06 and 2006–07. Currently the away kit is changed every season, with the outgoing away kit becoming the third choice kit if a new home kit is being introduced in the same year.

Arsenal's shirts have been made by a variety of manufacturers, including Umbro (from the 1970s until 1986), Adidas (1986–1994), and since 1994 they have been made by Nike. Like most other major football clubs, Arsenal have had shirt sponsorship since the 1980s, with sponsors including JVC (1982–1999), Sega (1999–2002), O2 (2002–2006) and current sponsors Emirates (from 2006).