Borussia Dortmund 2025-2026 Kit Explained
It isn’t easy for some kit manufacturers to come up with new designs for certain football teams. Liverpool play in red, for example, whilst Real Madrid are known as ‘Los Blancos’ because of their predominantly white kit.
In the case of Borussia Dortmund, the yellow and black nature of the shirt that they play their home kits in is well-known to people all around the world.
With that in mind, Puma have tried to do something a little bit more funky than usual with the kit that Der BVB will be playing in for their home matches during the 2025-2026 Bundesliga campaign, as well as other tournaments.
Inspired by the Past
As is so often the case for football club kit manufacturers, Puma have looked to Borussia Dortmund’s illustrious history for inspiration around the new kit. The design used for the upcoming season is striking in nature, taking its lead from the kit that the club wore during the 1993-1994 campaign, seeing an abstract pattern used on the shoulders and into the sleeves. If you wanted to be slightly less generous, you could say that it looks as though someone has spilled some black paint onto the top half of a yellow shirt, leaving streaks and lines on it as a result of that.
Look a bit closer, though, and you can see that it is much more deliberate than that. The lines are specific, being a mixture of yellow and black and not interfering with any of the important parts of the shirt. The key one, at least as far as the maker of it is concerned, is the black big cat that looks as though it is jumping forward on the right breast of the kit. Supporters don’t really care about that, of course, so they will be more interested in the BVB 09 badge that is on the left breast, along with the two stars that represent the club’s five Bundesliga titles, which is dictated by the German Football Association, the DFB.
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Also present is the logo of the club’s sponsor, which is Vodafone. Some supporters who were quick off the mark in buying a shirt will have been able to get hold of one without this logo on it, instead being entirely plain in nature. That is owing to the fact that when the kit was first released, Dortmund hadn’t reached an agreement with any company to be their main sponsor. The mobile phone company even agreed to turn their famous red logo black to appear on the front of the shirt, which supporters were happy to learn. It is a far cry from recent issues around Der BVB’s sponsorship by an arms manufacturer.
Not the Club World Cup Kit
It is not uncommon for football clubs to release new kits every season, trying as hard as possible to earn as much money as they can from supporters who like to own every piece of official merchandise that they can. What did seem to be at least a little bit snide, though, was the decision from Borussia Dortmund to release a kit specifically to be worn during the Club World Cup this summer. The kit was made in collaboration with Colm Dillane, who is better known as KidSuper. The American artist and fashion designer launched his streetwear clothing brand in New York.
The kit showed off Dortmund’s standard yellow for the most part, with the upper section seeing what looked to be black dabs of a paintbrush to give it a uniqueness. When it was worn in the club’s first match of the tournament, it was emblazoned with the logo of Der BVB’s sponsor at the time, Evonik. That was the only time that that specific shirt was worn, however, owing to the fact that Vodafone’s sponsorship came into play for the rest of the tournament. It was a one-off, being the first Dortmund kit worn by the club’s new sponsor Jobe Bellingham, likely making it a collector’s item.
