The best mock-ups of Chelsea’s beautiful new 2017-18 Nike kits, home, away, and third

Chelsea are set to reveal the new Nike kits on July 1st, switching shirt manufacturers after 11 seasons with adidas.

The new Nike contract will pay Chelsea £60m per year, or about twice as much as what adidas were handing over for the privilege of seeing their brand advertised by the team. Given these vast sums, one of the theories that’s been gaining traction through repetition is that Chelsea’s signings are being delayed by this announcement, but the fact of the matter is that Chelsea rarely announce new signings before July regardless of the kit situation. Giving that much control and influence to a shirt manufacturer would be fairly unprecedented as well.

Either way, July 1st is set to be a momentous date with the kit reveal as well possibly the first major signing of the summer, as was teased earlier.

We’ve seen multiple leaks and mock-ups of the new kits — simple and beautiful! — but designer Diego von Trier has put together what’s likely to be the best and most accurate mock-ups yet, and posted them on Imgur for all to admire. (h/t: /r/chelseafc and FootyHeadlines)

We can see the raglan-sleeved template on all three shirts, but because they aren’t contrasting with the body of the shirt, they’re bearable. They are likely to be a different material, the sleeves, so there will be a bit of visible difference, especially up close.

I love that Nike are keeping their first ever Chelsea designs clean and simple and thus beautiful. Blue at home, white away (would also accept yellow), and black third with an urban camo pattern. But third shirts are hardly anything more than novelty items so going a bit wild with those is fine.

There are also a couple images going around of the “real” (?) home shirt, with one supposedly taken at a Nike warehouse and the other provided without any sourcing information but matching the leaks and mock-ups.