Artist Reko Rennie Talks About His Involvement In The Upcoming 2025 Nike Australia Kit Design

When it comes to football kits, there can be so much more to them than just performance and aesthetics – they can be a statement of identity, culture, and history. For Australia’s upcoming 2025 kit, Nike has called upon the creativity and knowledge of interdisciplinary artist Reko Rennie, bringing a bold, contemporary, and deeply meaningful design to the Socceroos and Matildas.

Rennie, a proud Kamilaroi man, is renowned for his striking visual language, blending traditional First Nations symbolism with modern artistry. His take on the national kit isn’t just about looking good on the pitch – it’s a powerful nod to the oldest living continuous culture in the world, integrating patterns inspired by message sticks, a traditional form of communication among Aboriginal peoples. The result? A jersey that speaks to inclusivity, identity, and the diverse communities that make up Australian football.

While the world waits to see the jersey design in all of its gloriousness, we caught up with Rennie to dive into the creative process behind the kit, the significance of its patterns and colours, and what it means to see First Nations art on the global football stage. Long story short – this is more than just a kit – it’s a message, a celebration, and a step forward for representation in the game.

So Reko, what inspired the overall design for the new Australia kit?

In the overall design of the kit, I wanted to connect with the oldest living continuous culture in the world, which are the First Nations people in Australia. I used a form of line work, some people call it that zigzag pattern, which was about having the ability to access other areas in the form of a carved implement, called a message stick.

It was a form of passport in a way. When other communities were visiting another community, they would carry this implement,

So I thought why not have that design implemented on the jersey because then, when the players are playing internationally or locally, we have this amazing representation of culture; we have amazing representation of identity and inclusivity.

Tell us about the colours and the shapes – were there any other specific elements that you were thinking about while working on this?

I had looked over a lot of the kits from the past and as someone who was born in the 70s, I'd always remembered the kind of wild looking kits from the 80s and I wanted this one to resemble something that was really patterned and bright and colourful like those kits. And so I did have an ambitious idea to introduce a little accent colour, and, not to take away from the importance of the national colours, but introduce something a little bit more contemporary and more of the time in terms of identity and who we are as a nation. It’s about how multi-faceted we are and the different communities that represent Australia.

So the pink to me was something of this old magenta, the magenta that I wanted to use on the kit was something about paying homage and recognising this contemporary identity of Australia, which represents this very layered community and country of various nations and identities.

What about your signature style – how was that incorporated?

I was really lucky that Nike got to see my work and appreciate my journey and the work I create and they thought it was in line, obviously, to represent a national kit. I never went to art school. I started doing graffiti on the street and then I was a self-taught artist and I had a lot of initiative where I saw other artists and my beautiful mother used to take me to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) as a 10 year old and I'd spend a lot of time in there because it was a free space, you know.

I grew up in a very working class poor environment and so my mother would take me to these free cultural institutions because she had no money to take us somewhere else. So I spent a lot of time at the gallery and that's why I think I've had this international view of art and history and that was something I wanted to include in my work. I wanted to have this use of identity and colour through my work that wasn’t this romanticised or stereotype notion of what is an authentic First Nations individual or artwork.

Do you feel that it's in keeping with the spirit of football in general as well?

Yeah, absolutely. Football is about diversity, it’s about inclusion. It's about having a go and giving people opportunities. There’re many players that have come from nothing and built these amazing careers and had this huge success as a result of their skills. And I think that’s a testament to the opportunity to do something that you're good at. And luckily for me, it was art that I was good at, and I've got to also do something that I love.

I played football and even my daughter played right up until she was 17. Football's been a huge part of my community and even growing up in the West [of Melbourne], it was more often acceptable to play soccer or football as it was known.

Is your daughter really excited about this project?

Yeah, absolutely. She's 21 and she started playing when she was about eight years old and then ended up at South Melbourne playing for the club there until she was 17. She could have went on and played a lot more but she just went on to doing school and other things. But yeah, she's been really wrapped. It’s been a huge part of our lives together.

I used to take her to the games and I'd sometimes be the linesman, so there was all that community spirit that goes along with football and being part of a club. It's a really huge honour and she's super proud.

Yeah, absolutely. Were there any particular challenges or considerations, particularly designing for high performance athletes?

Not really. The only challenge is you're within requirements [that come when designing a national team kit], but they're just normal parameters of having to work on something. Nike and the team were absolutely amazing in the process – I was talking with guys in London, in Oregon, there was communications from everyone all over the world that supported me and supported the designs.

It was just an easy team effort, assisting me and working on something so massive. 

That actually leads very nicely onto the next question: how did you come to integrate the pink in the away kit, and the vibrant reinterpretation of the green and gold in the home kit?

There is a limit with the green and gold, Not to take away from any of the previous kits, but I just found them a little bit dated in terms of the colourway. And and that's just my personal view because it's really bright saturated colours and I thought you see fashion today and particularly in in sport, and a lot of athletes, they're either wearing silver or pink football boots and that colour is out there. There used to be this silly notion of gender-based colour and now that's just a thing of the past. I really wanted to make things brighter and more recent and contemporary and also reflect on the diversity of the community that we now have. I mean, this kit is one kit, you know, it's not a a gender-based kit and that’s super important to me. Regardless of gender and identity, it's about individuality and community.

You mentioned your daughter playing and the fact you played yourself in the past. Was there any other kind of personal connection that you had to football that fuelled this project?

Yeah, look, I mean, we all followed amazing footballers throughout the years and there was Pele and of course, Maradonna and and just the ability to see these individuals…There were these huge iconic stars particularly out in the West.

I grew up in a very working class environment, so that meant where I lived, there was five factories where immigrants that came to Australia were able to get a job straight away with no regards to their standard of English. So there's a very heavy European influence around my community and everyone – whether they were Italian, Greek, South American or any other nation – they would all be interested in football. So having meals around at friends homes, the football would be on or you'd stay up and watch the football at various hours of the night. I was ingrained in that world from a very young age. There was all those influences about identity, kit, community, representation, and I think that came very early on from my community.

How do you hope that the players and the fans feel when they see the kit on the field for the first time?

I hope that they’ll be super excited about this kit because I think from seeing a version of it on the field, it just really stands out. It’s almost like this dazzling kind of image where the opposition players are going to be looking in awe at the kit.

I think we'll see a lot of people wearing them. There's already a trend with football crossing over to fashion and high couture as we've seen, and collaborations. But I just think a lot more people will wear this Nike kit.

And what does it mean to you that there'll be a nod to First Nations art in the game with this kit?

It's a huge honour. I was saying to my mother the other day if someone had told a 12-year-old me that one day you're going to be designing the kit with Nike for the Australian national teams, I would have probably told myself to piss off, you know! It's a huge achievement and it’s so wild that I've had this opportunity and I'm representing my community. It’s the first time a First Nations artist or individual has ever done this. But, it’s not the first time First Nations people have been involved in in football; we’ve got amazing people like Charlie Perkins, who went over and played overseas. I think there's this legacy now, and it's great that First Nations’ contemporary work is being selected to represent our identity.

So how did the collaboration with Nike and football Australia come about and what was it what was it like working with them?

I had a really good team with Nike. The whole team really understood my work. I got to work with a lot of designers, a lot of people that have worked on numerous World Cup kits, and so I already knew what these guys were capable of.

I had a bunch of ideas and we went a few different ways. I think the strongest version or iteration of the design I considered was one of the first. And the rest of the team chose that as well.

Getting it across the line with Football Australia and FIFA, those things all take time with the regulations, and those bits really didn't have anything to do with me. But in all, it was it was a very easy process to work on and work with Nike.

I’m so glad that we've we've got here and I'm excited that the Socceroo’s and Matildas will be wearing it.

And and on that, how were they involved, the players?

I had a lot to do with particularly Kyah from the Matildas and I spoke to a number of players and because Kyah is also First Nation there was just a great connection there. We would talk when she was in London, talk when she was here and it was just this contemporary understanding that she just got it straight away and loved it. I think having that support from the players was super important. They could have said, 'nah, we don't like this. What are you doing?' But I was really warmly welcomed and I really appreciated that because it made my job easier in terms of getting the work done.

It's all about cultural visibility, you know. Inclusivity and identity. And that's community, where we can do that through football.

Is anything specifically from your heritage incorporated in the design?

Much of the geometric patterning that I use throughout my work comes from my area. The diamond patterning is a lot like a coat of arms, like a crest. For a European style equivalent, it's your family crest. So that symbol is my family crest, and so I only use that particular version, because that's what I'm allowed to use. But I use it in a contemporary format. And so the design that is on the kit is influenced by that, obviously, but it's a zigzag formation, which was sometimes used on message sticks throughout southeastern Australia.

And so it was a form of passport in a way. When other communities were visiting another community, they would carry this implement, which was this carved timber thing. And so the kit is in a way, it’s representing the oldest living continuous culture in the world, which is First Nations people, in a collaboration with Nike on the field, anywhere in the world. So you've got this amazing representation or homage to the First Nations community and the colourway of Australia. I mean what better kit design story is there than that!

How do you feel about First Nations Art being platformed on the global stage, and through the world game?

First Nations Art has has been well received internationally, and it’s been renowned for probably the last 40, 50 years in reality. But there's been a problem with that too, where overseas internationally have only a very romanticised and stereotypical notion of that identity, that being someone from the desert painting dots or playing a didgeridoo. It's a very particular point of view that isn't correct. First Nations communities make up two hundred and eighty odd different language groups and of them, different cultural practices and different artistic practices. So this work that is heading out into the world, the majority of Aboriginal Australia, particularly southeastern Australia, would use line forms in their artwork. So it's about showing the diversity of this amazing culture that’s in this country and representing that. We're not just all dots and didgeridoo.

Fact is that the majority of Aboriginal people, First Nations people, live in urban environments. They don't live on the fringes of a desert, don't live in the plains or rural regional areas. The majority of us occupy city areas, urban landscapes, and people play football, they play AFL, rugby, tennis, all kinds of sports. It's about showing this diversity of who we are as a contemporary people. And I think it's very important and artwork does that. It raises education, raises awareness, and this kit is going to raise a lot of awareness about the inclusion of identity of the oldest living continuous culture in the world and who we are as a nation in a contemporary aspect.

The Australia 2025 kit drops at the end of this month and it will be available at prodirectsport.com/soccer.