6-year-old boy designs Italian club Pescara's new kit

MANILA, Philippines — Italian football club Pescara recently unveiled their new jersey that was designed by a six-year old boy.  

Pescara recently conducted a competition among its fans to keep people busy in the midst of a lockdown in Italy. The club was swamped with hundreds of submissions

The winner is six-year-old Luigi d’Agostino, who depicted a dolphin playing with a football next to the waves of the sea with a rainbow in the background. Pescara is a seaside town in the Abruzzo region of Italy and is next to the Adriatic Sea. 

D’Agostino met Pescara club officials along with its kit designer, Errea, for its prototype design that was unveiled to fans last April 22. The jersey will have the tag on the side, “By Luigi.”

Pescara, is a former Serie A club that is now competing in Serie B, or the second division where at the time of Italy’s lockdown due to Covid-19 was in 14th place. The new kits with d’Agostino’s design will be unveiled next season.

The sports world has seen a number of unusual designs for their playing gear. 

In recent years Tokyo-based fashion designer BAPE (A Bathing Ape) collaborated with French team Paris St. Germain as well as Japan’s national team. Gucci and Nike has worked on an Inter Milan kit. Burburry and Umbro have produced a kit for English club, West Ham United while top jeans maker Levi’s has tag teamed with Adidas on a Bayern Munich kit.

Over in basketball, in 1988, the Charlotte Hornets unveiled their new teal jersey with pinstripes and pleats on the trunks – yes, pleats – made by clothing designer Alexander Julian that was hugely popular. It also helped that the Hornets began to make a buzz as they had some iconic players in Muggsy Bogues and Larry Johnson, who did his “Grandmama” commercials for Converse, as well as Alonzo Mourning.

Pescara though isn’t the first professional sports team to involve fans in the design process. 

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban turned to fans to design his team’s uniforms for the 2015-16 season. While it received a lot of attention and submissions from fans, professional designers called out the enigmatic Cuban for his “amateurish” move while others decried that the Mavs would eventually own it and not the designer.

Dallas native Geoff Case won the contest for the design of the alternative uniform.