With 11 T-shirts, A Change of Kit aims to generate attention for the Women's World Cup

A Change of Kit, launching today, is a project initiated by three designers and one illustrator, curating a team of 11 creatives from around the world to celebrate the 2019 Women’s World Cup. “Football should be enjoyed by us all equally,” A Change of Kit, AKA Amy Tibbles, Adam-Morton Delaney, Charlie Jeffries and Scarlett Chetwin, tells It’s Nice That. “With teamwork, skill and passion, football has the power to capture our imagination, inspire us and move us. We believe everyone deserves the chance to get involved.”

It was while reminiscing on the heady experience that was the 2018 World Cup that the team, all Kingston grads who now live together “in a tiny and very noisy flat in Dalston,” realised there was an opportunity to create something around this year’s tournament. Adam tells us: “We were chatting about how World Cup fever took over last year – there was this sense of energy across the country and the world. And we were saying how this summer we’ll miss that. But then we realised there was the women’s tournament this summer, yet that we hadn’t heard much about it.” Frustrated at the distinct lack of coverage of the women’s game in comparison to the men’s, they conceptualised A Change of Kit to “generate attention, build hype, and try put the same spotlight on the women’s tournament as the men’s.”

A Change of Kit, therefore, sees 11 illustrators and designers from six different countries, visualising 11 numbers, all printed on the back of T-shirts. The project has been created in partnership with Everpress, a choice on which Charlie says: “We naturally wanted to collaborate with someone who already had an established network in that industry, but what stood out about Everpress is how they’re opening doors for creatives around the world… We contacted them pretty early on with the project, only a few days after we thought of the idea, and they seemed really excited about it.” Launching today on the Everpress site, the campaign will run for ten days after which all proceeds will be donated to grassroots organisations fighting for equal representation for women’s football in London.

It’s a bumper list of collaborators including Amy herself alongside Soft Power, Francesca Williams, Charlotte Ager, Karabo Poppy, Sarah Boris, Nina Carter, Matteo Gualandris, Warriors Studio, Minute Books and Roger Gutierrez. Each illustration varies in style, a reflection of their global spread, but also a manifestation of the myriad kinds of football supporters. In essence, they are a joyful expression of the diversity that exists in both creativity and football, a topic we’re big fans of here at It’s Nice That.

“It was important to us that we worked with creatives not just from the UK but from as many countries participating in the world cup as possible,” Amy explains. “We were torn between the idea of purely involving female artists or mixing up the line-up. As a team of two guys and two girls curating the project, we thought it was important to have an even mix of genders to support our goal of levelling the playing field. Our aim is for football to become an inclusive sport and so we wanted our choice of collaborators to reflect this.”

Amy, Adam, Charlie and Scarlett are currently in the process of working out where their earnings will find a home. With an understanding that any proceeds should bolster the fight for gender equality within sport, but also that it would be great to support a local organisation, Scarlett concludes: “We’re currently in talks with a few different local teams in East London. We’d like to have to most impact possible, so currently we don’t know exactly what we’ll be buying with the money. I guess what we’d really love to do is buy a brand new full kit for a team who need it. So that they can also change their kit this year.”

Head over to the Everpress site to get your hands on one of the tees, available for the next ten days.