Brancusi sculpture inspires Romanian football kit

As the new football season kicks off around Europe this month, fans have been lining up at their club shops to buy the latest replica kits. Football has had its fair share of creative and sometimes not-so-creative designs, from Manchester United’s 1995-96 grey away kit that was so dull their manager famously made the players change at half time as they couldn’t see each other, to Chelsea’s 2007-08 hi-vis monstrosity that at least meant it could be worn on a building site. But one club this season has gone for something a little more artistic. Step forward Romania’s CS Universitatea Craiova, whose latest strip features a pattern inspired by Constantin Brancusi. The Romanian Modernist’s Endless Column was completed in 1938, is 30 metres tall and situated in the city of Târgu Jiu. A spokesman for CSU Craiova tells The Art Newspaper that the pattern on the kit was inspired by the “porch pillar of the traditional house in [the region of] Oltenia” as well as the sculptor’s work, which also takes its design from the same source. The pattern represents “verticality as a rigour of communal behaviour, high aspirations and perfection”, she says. CSU Craiova are currently riding high in second place in the Romanian league.