Hot on the heels of the Chelsea and adidas announcing a mutual termination of our long-term partnership -- as has often been the case with managers leaving by "mutual consent", it's once again Chelsea paying to get out of the contract early -- here come the last two kits that adidas will produce for Chelsea in the foreseeable future.
I do like the hoops (and the burnout pattern adds even more interest), but the shoulder stripes don't play too well with them. A different manufacturer (without the three-stripes branding) could pull this off much better. That said, you have to go back to the mid-to-late '80s to find proper hoops on a Chelsea shirt, so that's something. (Though, given recent design trends, there's no guarantee that the design actually wraps around the whole body.)
We've had plenty of third kits in black in recent years, but an actual away kit in black hasn't happened since 2011-12 (wasn't a fan of the spiderman-suit thing going on with that one). The season before we also had black away shirts, and those were awesome with the subtle-ish vertical orange stripes.
While I like the idea of black away kits, I had presumed we went away from them since in terms of color clashing, they weren't always all that different from the home blues. So we ended up having to play in the third shirts more often than normal. Or perhaps that's intentional.
So, just like 2011-12, again, the away kit will be white. And a rather plain one at that.
I mean, if they're going to charge an arm and a leg for these things, at least make them somewhat interesting...
As much as I was once excited by adidas taking over from Umbro for Chelsea merchandising (especially as don't wear the kits, but rather just other "fashion" items), the kits for the current season and next season have really soured me on the whole adidas design experience. They're either trying too hard or not trying hard enough. Regardless, I'm ready for something fresh and new and exciting by whoever takes over at the end of next season.