A huge slice of nostalgia is being served up for Blues fans with the relaunch today of the Chelsea Collection range of clothing.

With tops, jackets, a hat and two retro team shirts now available at the official online store and in our Megastore at the stadium, it is back to the 1980s.

Terrace fashion was at its height back then with the ‘football casual’ look prevailing across the land. At Chelsea, we captured the moment when with our previous kit deal at an end, we took not only the manufacturing of the players’ strip in house, at the same moment we launched a wide range of leisurewear for the first time. Chelsea FC selling directly to Chelsea fans.

Chairman at the time Ken Bates hired a commercial director who was a former goalkeeper from our previous kit manufacturer, his new job to oversee the whole clothing venture. With messages like ‘The Chelsea Collection is coming’ and ‘Become part of the Chelsea Collection’, the launch was teased for weeks in the matchday programme and then in spring 1986, it was here – ‘a fashionable range of clothes and accessories designed for fashionable people’.

There was even a new club badge designed to adorn the gear.

Now in 2023, the styles and the blue and jade colouring so evocative of that era are back. The jade of the change kit is also one of the shades that inspired the third kit for this current campaign.

Completing the new retro range are three styles of t-shirt with contrasting armbands, stripes and raglan sleeves marking them out from each other; a blue sweatshirt and drill top; a bobble hat and a three-colour track jacket - all very much in the theme of that mid-80s vintage. 

The new Chelsea Collection. Wearing Chelsea’s heritage with pride.