The 10 Best Juventus Kits Ever: When Black and White Became an Art Form

Some football shirts are merchandise. Others are memories. And then there is Juventus.

Few clubs have worn a simpler combination of colours with quite so much authority. Black. White. Stripes. On paper, there is almost nothing to it. Yet across generations, Juventus have continually found ways to reinvent those stripes without stripping them of their identity.

That is what makes the great Juventus shirt so special.

You can change the manufacturer. Change the sponsor. Widen the stripes, narrow them, interrupt them or, occasionally, abandon them altogether. But when a Juventus kit is right, you know immediately who it belongs to.

The very best shirts also transport you somewhere. To Alessandro Del Piero gliding across the turf. To Zinedine Zidane before he became a Galáctico. To Antonio Conte the midfielder rather than the manager. To Pavel Nedvěd, Gianluigi Buffon, David Trezeguet and Edgar Davids. To Scudetti, Champions League nights and an era when Serie A felt like the centre of the football universe.

And then there are the away shirts — blue, yellow, black and, gloriously, pink — that prove La Vecchia Signora can be playful when she wants to be.

Choosing only ten is cruel.But these are the Juventus shirts that, for me, simply rise above the rest.

10. 2018/19 Third Kit

We begin with a shirt that understood one of the fundamental rules of Juventus design: black rarely needs much help.

The 2018/19 third kit was sleek, understated and unmistakably modern. Its dark base was lifted by yellow detailing, including the Juventus crest, adidas branding and Jeep sponsor.

It arrived during the Cristiano Ronaldo era, which inevitably gives it another layer of significance. This was Juventus presenting themselves not merely as Italy’s dominant football club, but as a genuinely global sporting brand.

There are more historically important Juventus shirts.There are more adventurous ones too.

But purely as something you would still happily wear today?

 

9. 2020/21 Home Kit

Juventus have spent more than a century asking essentially the same design question: how do you reinvent black and white stripes?

The 2020/21 shirt offered one of the more unusual answers.Instead of perfectly clean traditional bands, the stripes had a painted, almost brushstroke quality. Gold detailing added another dimension, giving the shirt a luxurious finish without overwhelming the basic Juventus identity.

Traditionalists may prefer their stripes perfectly straight.I understand that.

But Juventus kits should occasionally take risks. When you have an identity this recognisable, you have earned the right to play with it.This was familiar enough to be Juventus and different enough to be remembered.

That balance is harder to achieve than it looks.

8. 1998/99 Away Kit

It was Manufactured by Kappa and featured a classic white design worn during a turbulent season that included a 7th-place Serie A finish, a Coppa Italia quarter-final exit, and a run to the UEFA Champions League semi-finals. The Black Star on the Sleeve was also Sublime

2017/18 Away Kit

Yellow Juventus shirts have always possessed a certain swagger.The 2017/18 away kit brought the colour back magnificently, pairing a vivid yellow body with blue detailing in a nod to some of the club’s great alternative shirts of the past.

It was bright without becoming ridiculous.Retro without becoming a costume.And unmistakably Italian.

The shirt also belonged to the final years of Juventus’ extraordinary domestic stranglehold, when winning Serie A had almost ceased to feel like an achievement and started to resemble an annual administrative procedure.Some kits whisper.This one walked into the room already knowing it looked good.

6. 1996/97 Home Kit

5. 2003/04 Away Kit

Pink Juventus shirts are not some modern marketing department’s attempt at being clever.

Pink is part of the club’s story.

Before Juventus adopted the black-and-white stripes that would become synonymous with the club, they played in pink. Every time the colour returns, therefore, it carries a little historical wink with it.

The 2003/04 away shirt did it brilliantly.

The soft pink body contrasted beautifully with the black trim, while the Nike swoosh, Juventus crest and gloriously period-specific FASTWEB sponsor completed the look.

And that sponsor matters.

Take it away and the shirt loses something.

This is a distinctly early-2000s football shirt, and it should be allowed to look like one.

At the time, pink football shirts were still unusual enough to feel genuinely daring. Juventus did not merely get away with it; they made the colour look completely natural.

Bold, historic and effortlessly Italian.

One of the finest away shirts the club has ever produced.

4. 2015/16 Home Kit

There are Juventus shirts, and then there are shirts that seem to capture an entire era. The 1997/98 home kit belongs firmly in the latter category.

Made by Kappa, the shirt took those famous black-and-white stripes and gave them unmistakable late-90s Italian elegance. The black collar, Scudetto shield and wonderfully nostalgic Sony MiniDisc sponsorship created a design that was simple, distinctive and effortlessly cool.

More than two decades later, it hasn’t really aged.

Kappa. Sony. Black and white. Del Piero and Zidane.

Sometimes football shirt design really is that simple. Simply sublime.

That sounds obvious, but it isn’t.

Modern football clubs increasingly have to balance heritage with the commercial pressure to produce something visibly different every twelve months. Juventus’ identity makes that especially difficult.

The 2015/16 shirt showed that evolution does not require revolution.

Sometimes you simply make the classic look exceptionally good.

3. 1997/98 Away Kit

Blue and yellow should not work this beautifully on a Juventus shirt.

And yet.

The 1997/98 away kit is one of those glorious designs that instantly evokes an entire era.

Bright royal blue. Yellow shoulders and collar. Kappa logos. SONY emblazoned across the front.

And Del Piero.

Always Del Piero.

This was Juventus at the absolute summit of European football, with a team packed full of players who now exist somewhere between sporting history and mythology.

The shirt feels equally larger than life.

There is no minimalism here. No attempt to make something discreet enough to wear beneath a blazer at a fashionable restaurant.

It is a football shirt.

Proudly, gloriously and unapologetically so.

And nearly three decades later, it remains magnificent.

2. 2012/13 Home Kit

There is something beautifully uncompromising about the 2012/13 Juventus home shirt.

The stripes are bold. The contrast is sharp. The Jeep sponsor somehow feels perfectly integrated. And the overall silhouette is unmistakably Juventus.

But its appeal goes beyond aesthetics.

This shirt belongs to the beginning of one of the most extraordinary periods of domestic dominance in modern European football.

Antonio Conte had transformed Juventus. The club had rediscovered its authority. Andrea Pirlo was conducting matches as though everyone else were operating several seconds behind him. Buffon remained Buffon. Giorgio Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci and Andrea Barzagli were becoming a defensive institution.

Juventus were back.

That matters when judging a shirt.

Great kits absorb the feeling of the teams that wore them. Eventually you stop seeing fabric and begin seeing moments.

The 2012/13 shirt carries that unmistakable sense of a giant rediscovering exactly what it was.

1. 1995/96 Home Kit

There could only be one.

The 1995/96 Juventus home shirt is not merely a beautiful Juventus kit.

It is one of the great football shirts.

Period.

The proportions are perfect. The black-and-white stripes are magnificent. The collar gives it personality. Kappa’s branding belongs completely to the period. SONY sits across the chest in that wonderfully enormous 1990s fashion.

Then there is what happened while Juventus were wearing it.

Marcello Lippi’s side conquered Europe, defeating Ajax in Rome to win the 1996 Champions League.

That alone guarantees immortality.

But nostalgia cannot explain everything.

Remove the trophies. Remove the players. Remove the memories.

It is still gorgeous.

And perhaps that is the ultimate test of a truly great football shirt.

The best kits simultaneously belong to their time and escape it.

The 1995/96 Juventus home shirt does exactly that.

Honourable mentions

The danger with Juventus is that another ten shirts could quite comfortably have made the list. The 2013/14 away, 2014/15 home, 2016/17 away, 2019/20 away, 2021/22 home, 2022/23 third, 2023/24 away and 2024/25 home all deserve some affection.

But ten means ten.

And the very best Juventus shirts share something that cannot really be measured by templates, collars or colour combinations.

They have presence.

Juventus’ black and white has survived generations of manufacturers, sponsors, superstars and stylistic revolutions because the identity underneath it all is extraordinarily strong. The club can wear pink one year, blue and yellow the next, experiment with its stripes and occasionally discard them altogether.

Eventually, though, Juventus always comes home.

Back to black.

Back to white.

Back to those stripes.

Because fashions change. Sponsors disappear. Players retire.

But Juventus in black and white never really gets old.