The Arsenal away shirt for the 2011-12 season, which is navy and turquoise blue in colour, features a bespoke crest that marks the club’s 125th anniversary year – and looks forward to the club’s next chapter as the most environmentally-friendly kit Nike has ever produced.
The front of the new away shirt is divided into two halves, one in navy blue and one in turquoise blue, inspired by the away kits worn by Arsenal teams from the past. The diagonal line represents the gnomon, the pointer which casts the shadow on a sundial, inspired by the original Dial Square sundial on the site of the Arsenal munitions factory in Woolwich, where the Club was first conceived in 1886.
Founded in Woolwich in 1886 and called The Royal Arsenal, the celebratory crest design combines the graphic of 15 laurel leaves to represent each of founding fathers and 15 oak leaves to mark the location of its foundation in a bold white print and carries the anniversary dates of 1886 and 2011 on the heart of the shirt. Underneath the celebratory crest sits the word ‘FORWARD’ as a tribute to the club’s first motto.
The back of the shirt is entirely navy blue, while one sleeve is navy blue and the other turquoise blue, with a stripe in three parts on each to once more represent the Dial Square sundial. On the back of the shirt below the neck reads ‘’Arsenal’, while inside the front, on the back of the crest, is a graphic that reads ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’, (‘Victory Through Harmony’), Arsenal’s Latin motto, which was previously featured on earlier versions of their club crest between 1949 and 2002. The away shorts are navy blue whilst the away socks are also navy blue with the year of Arsenal’s foundation, 1886, printed in white on the back of each calf.