Picture the scene it’s the long, hot, summer of 1990, WHAT AN ICONIC TIME ! Spike Island, the Haçienda, The Madchester Music Scene, and of course who could forget Italia 90 ! The 14th FIFA World Cup. New Order supplied the MOST Anthemic, not to mention, cool footie song ever to accompany Paul Gascoigne, Stuart Pierce, John Barnes, Gary Lineker and led by Sir Bobby Robson. At this time British football was experiencing a darker moment in its history, hooliganism was rife, English clubs were banned from playing in European competitions and attendances at games had drastically fallen.
To promote a peaceful world cup tournament for Italia 90, a little, as yet, unknown brand, still very much a twinkle in the eye of its founders Olaf and Su Parker dreamt up the ‘No Alla Violenza’ t-shirt range. Initially some retailers rejected the range on the grounds that the message was ‘too deep’, however they were soon stocked by icon stores like Duffer of St George, Bond, Geese, Psyche and Hip and over the next few months those retailers, who initially had turned the range down, had to eat humble pie as the more forward thinking retailers were selling them by the bucket load.The anti hooligan message was taken up not only by serious football fans but all the cool club kids at the time. By the end of 1990 everyone seemed to be wearing them including Mr Fatboy Slim, Norman Cook, The Farm and The Beloved(see above). This enabled Olaf and Su to launch Burro and well and truly put it on the style map.
Move forward by 26 years and another retailer with great soccer heritage has taken on the mantle. Burton, has produced some historical and stylish football moments itself, dressing the England team in suiting for the victorious squad of 1966 and then again in 2002. The two brands have come together to work on updating the designs for 2016.
