12 OF THE BEST PSG JERSEYS OF ALL TIME
From the Hechter Stripe to logomania, an overview of Paris Saint-Germain’s greatest jerseys.
Paris, 1970. The revolutionary spirit of the ’68 student riots still permeates the city. Jane Birkin dominates newspaper kiosks on the front cover of Vogue and Kenzo Takada has just opened his first boutique in the Galerie Vivienne. In cafes, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre discuss existentialism, while Sam Gilliam and other artists debut their inaugural exhibitions. There is glamour. There is style. There is culture. Curiously, there is no reputable football team.
Dismayed, Guy Crescent and Pierre-Étienne Guyot of Paris FC and Henri Patrelle of Stade Saint-Germain set about bringing elite-level football to the French capital by merging their lower-league entities. Paris Saint-Germain is born.
The club’s early years are respectable, but it isn’t until 1973 that the PSG of today begins to take shape. Fashion designer and ready-to-wear innovator Daniel Hechter is named the new president and immediately sets about revolutionizing the club’s image. Hechter revamps the home jersey, introducing a red vertical line—colloquially referred to as the “Hechter Stripe”—inspired by the Ford Mustang’s racing stripes and the colors of Johan Cruyff’s Ajax.
In 2012, global names such as Zlatan Ibrahimović, Neymar Jr., Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi began to arrive in Paris, carrying the club’s colors from Paris to Buenos Aires to Seoul and cementing the PSG kit as an icon of global style. Today, PSG’s design language is as synonymous with the French capital as any number of houses, from Louis Vuitton to Hermès.
As the Hechter Stripe enters its 50th year, we revisit 12 of the club’s most memorable home and away jerseys.
1974-75 Away Jersey
A white away kit featuring a red, white and blue tricolor stripe down the right side supplemented Hechter’s first home kit. This would become a familiar motif for PSG, seen as recently on 2019-20’s third jersey. During the ’80s, PSG used white as its primary home color on the insistence of then-manager Georges Peyroche, who believed it looked more imposing visually. He had a point, as the club won the 1982 and 1983 Coupe de France titles as well as the 1985-86 Ligue 1 championship. One dissenter, however, was Hechter himself, who claimed the shirt reminded him too much of Ligue 1 rivals Lyon.
1975-76 Home Jersey
Hechter began to plot his domination of French football by appointing Just Fontaine as manager in September 1975. He wouldn’t be the last glamorous name to sign on at Parc de Princes. Johan Cruyff, whose boyhood club Ajax inspired the Hechter Stripe design, pitched up for two games in a summer friendly tournament, agreeing to play because of his friendship with the club president. His time in Paris may have been brief, but the image remains an iconic cultural snapshot and a sign of where PSG was headed.
1990-91 Home Jersey
The city of Paris has always bequeathed PSG kit designers ample resources for inspiration, none more so than the Eiffel Tower. Despite this, the club has been careful to use such icons sparingly, paying tribute to its Parisian roots with more subtle details. This was not the case in 1990, where a brush-stroke depiction of the cultural landmark was the defining feature of the white home jersey, appropriating the campaign logo that featured in the city’s failed bid to host the 1992 Olympics. Bold and utterly retro, it is arguably the club’s most patriotic jersey ever.
1993-94 Home Jersey
Following a period of wearing Trefoil-adorned adidas kits, PSG established its now legendary partnership with Nike in 1989. During this period, the league’s relaxed attitude to commercial sponsors allowed teams to wear jerseys brandished with an array of brands and services, from Commodore and Müller to SEAT, Pfizer and Liptonic. Propelled by style icon David Ginola and the legendary Raí—arguably PSG’s greatest-ever player—the jersey was worn during the 1993-94 league-winning season. Fast forward 30 years and such logo-heavy shirts have taken on a kind of ironic cool, making them highly sought-after vintage pieces.
1996-97 Home Jersey
There are few kits more synonymous with ’90s European football than PSG’s shimmering blue and red home design, worn during the 1996-97 season as the club went all the way to the European Cup Winners’ Cup final. The collared shirt incorporated the PSG badge into a fabric pattern, with the PSG block-letter logo featured on the sleeve (this became the official emblem between 1992 and 1996). On the other arm, a small clover-like marking represents the Île-de-France region that surrounds Paris.
2001-02 Home Jersey
At the turn of the millennium, Brazilian forward Ronaldinho was carving a reputation as the most exciting young player in the world, having finished top scorer at the Copa America and Sydney Olympics. Linked with moves to European football royalty including Barcelona, Milan, Lazio and Manchester United, PSG surprised the football world by announcing that the prodigy would soon be calling Parc des Princes home. Joining the likes of Nicolas Anelka and Jay-Jay Okocha, Ronaldinho’s debut jersey aligned the iconic red stripe to the right chest, a design cue that would become more common in the following years.
2001-02 Away and Third Jerseys
PSG’s away kit is primarily synonymous with white but has been created in a range of colors, including black, red, pink, burgundy and silver. As the Ronaldinho era got underway, PSG lined up in the 2001-02 Champions League wearing silver and black change kits—two minimalist masterpieces with triangle-like, tonal designs that bore a similarity to the Eiffel Tower. Aesthetics aside, the black jersey’s days were numbered after PSG players declared it to be an unlucky omen following a defeat to Marseille.
2006-07 Away Jersey
From Yohji Yamamoto x Real Madrid to Palace x Juventus, fashion and football crossovers are more commonplace than ever today. PSG might not have been working with Louis Vuitton in any official capacity circa 2006, but the red and gold fleur-de-lis design of the away jersey was a clear reference to the luxury Parisian luggage master. The jersey was released to little fanfare at the time, but is now viewed as a bellwether for the club’s stylish future.
2009-10 Away Jersey
Behind the scenes and on the park, PSG was in a state of flux as season 2009-10 rolled around, governed by a revolving door of presidents in the lead up to Qatar Sports Investments’ eventual takeover. But when it came to kits, the club was still pushing the boundaries of design. Purists may have been upset that the home jersey ditched the Hechter Stripe in favor of pinstripes, but there was no doubt that the away option was an instant classic. Adorned with a collar, the minimalist design is adorned with red and blue dots that lend the silhouette a distinctive retro feel.
2020-21 Away Jersey
By 2018, PSG had settled into its role as football’s answer to the Los Angeles Lakers. It had the players, presence and, most of all, Paris. The capital’s love affair with basketball is well known, so which better club to carry the Jumpman for the first time than Paris Saint-Germain? Previewed by the likes of Travis Scott and Justin Timberlake, the Peter Moore-designed logo appeared alongside the PSG crest on an expansive array of co-branded styles. At the heart of the collection were two special-edition match kits (one in grey and one in black) that would be worn in the Champions League that season. If it were ever in doubt, PSG had taken flight as the world’s most glamorous club.
2021-22 Fourth Jersey
Most clubs treat the fourth jersey as an invitation to play with bold colors and patterns, due to the fact that it’s rarely worn by players on-pitch. And love it or hate it, PSG’s space-age Hyper Pink/Psychic Purple/Black jersey got people talking. To launch the jersey, Nike presented PSG players Kylian Mbappé, Marquinhos, Grace Geyoro and Marie-Antoinette Katoto as video game characters, furthering the suspicion that the aesthetic was intentionally realized to be video game-friendly—perhaps a sign of where football shirt designs are headed.
2022-23 Home Jersey
After a year away, PSG brought back the Hechter Stripe for the 2022-23 season. Using the VaporKnit template, the jersey bordered a white stripe with red lines. It marked a new era for the club, with Qatar Airways appearing as the front sponsor and GOAT on the sleeve. The release marked the second season of MNM, the media-coined nickname for the galactique forward trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr. and Kylian Mbappé, all of whom have been linked with the nickname of GOAT (Greatest of All Time). In December 2022, Messi inspired Argentina to a World Cup victory, forever associating him with the moniker.