"We just want to go for all red and all white kits. No pattern."

That was the message from Essendon Royals when we started on their 2026 kits. It's a request we hear a lot. Plain is safe. Plain is easy. Plain is vanilla.

My answer was "Noooo." Then: just indulge me a little. Let me design some kits that mean a bit more than just your colours.

Trieste

Every club has a story sitting under its colours. Essendon Royals was started by Italian migrants, and the club takes its name from Trieste, in Italy's north-east.

Trieste's symbol is the alabarda: a halberd, the old spear-and-axe weapon that sits on the city's coat of arms.

That was the story we wanted on the shirt.

Four or five ways

We designed four or five variations, each one built around the alabarda, repeated as a pattern across the whole shirt. Red for home. White for away. Still their colours, but now carrying something only Essendon Royals could wear.

They loved it.

The club pared the pattern back a little for the match kits, and that's how it should work. It's their kit. But the full alabarda pattern went right across their training gear.

The alabarda was born because we pushed for room for more than just a colour.

Why we push

A plain red shirt could belong to any club in the world. The alabarda belongs to one.

We'll always make the kit a club wants. But we'll always ask the question first: what's your story, and why isn't it on the shirt?

Essendon Royals fell in love with it. That's the point.

NO VANILLA.

Nick, Founder