The Eye of the Beholder: The 1971 Spanjian Catalog - Pants and Jerseys
I’ve made it known that the 1930s produced the ugliest uniforms in football’s glorious history, while also commenting on my enjoyment of football-related commercial and yearbook artwork, which I tend to cover around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays since it provides a break from the norm.
Those streams flow together today with a discussion of what I consider to be the ugliest phase of football-related art. While I am not an art historian, the patron saint of this movement -and I’ve had better-looking movements- was LeRoy Nieman, who achieved commercial success and honors in the 1960s and beyond. Others followed his style, and in at least one instance, a sporting goods manufacturer used it to illustrate its products in its annual catalog.
Spanjian Sportswear started in Chicago before moving to the LA area. Focusing on uniforms rather than the various pads and other equipment teams need, they captured about a quarter of the college football market by the late 1960s, in addition to producing uniforms for different sports.
The rotten apple of my eye is the 1971 Spanjian catalog, which used the Niemanesque impressionist style throughout, never once using a photograph to help potential customers understand what the products look like.
Since it is the holiday season, I’ll show selections from the catalog over the next few days, mostly following how they organized their products. In order, we’ll cover:
Football Pants and Jerseys
Numbers, Lettering, and Sleeve and Pant Stripes
Warmups, Parkas, and Coaching Gear
Other Sports
Consider these images my holiday gift to you.
Monochrome uniforms have become too popular, but if only more people had seen the image below, perhaps the game would not have reached its current low point.
Come back over the next for days for additional eye treatments, though I may slide in another story if I find something fun to cover.
Despite today’s Scrooge-like comments, I wish a Merry Christmas to all!
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This is brillaint stuff. The tension betwen artistic ambition and commercial clarity really comes through here. I ran into similar catalogs from that era while researching vintage gear, and it always struck me how Nieman's style seemed to prioritize vibe over actual product details. Coaches probably had no clue what they were actually ordering until it showed up.
Maybe people understood how it basically looked and just needed to know what it was made of? I am frequently looking at fielders gloves and actual footballs thinking, how did they choose??