Vintage temex rugby jerseys

origin of rugby jerseys

In the beginning players basically wore everyday clothing such as flannel shirts before dedicated jerseys began appearing in wool. As the sport developed, cotton gradually became the standard around the early 1900s, bringing with it many of the features we now associate with the classic rugby jersey: sturdy construction, rubber buttons, shorter collars and iconic stripes. These designs were shaped by the demands of the game, from making players easier to distinguish on the field to preventing opponents from grabbing collars or being hurt by buttons during tackles. 

rugby keeps using cotton (old long sleeve design)

The first sports to start using polyester material sportswear all the way in the 1960’s were sports like swimming, cycling, running and athletics. Only from the 1970’s and 1980’s sports like football and tennis started using polyester sportswear as well.

Rugby was always a sport that tried heavily to remain true to its old character. The old heavy rugby jerseys were one of the things to remain the same even though other sports had switched and changed. For context before 1995 it was not even allowed to be paid to play rugby union. Professionalism was outlawed as well as many other things that could ruin the character of the game.

Only in 1995 was it that world rugby officially entered the professional era. It might sound strange, but yes from then on it was finally allowed to make rugby a professional sport. The sport professionalised in many ways on the field and from 1995 on there were also incentives to professionalise off the field. Meaning that clubs and countries also started to look at how to improve the kits they were wearing. However it wouldn’t be until 8 years later that teams actually made the big step onto polyester sportswear, but more about that later.

Discovery of the temex weave

So in the period between the professionalisation of the sport and the takeover of polyester something interesting happened. In 1996 Canterbury of New Zealand, one of the most iconic rugby jersey brands invented something that mimicked a lot of the qualities polyester had while still being cotton. Here is what happened in an excerpt of the book. The company Lane Walker Rudkin was the company who did a lot of development for canterbury. This is what they say about it in their book Lane Walker Rudkin: 100 Years in the Making:

In 1996, a new development was introduced that would revolutionise fabric production.

It was called Temex, and came about after Textiles MD Mike Wilson went to the ITMA exhibition to find a new way of knitting football jerseys, one that would save significant production time.

Temex is a highly technical production method that enables fabric with different qualities - keeping players cool, when it's hot and warm when it's cold, plus special moisture-absorption qualities and added strength or grip - to be computer-generated for different zones of the garment.

Different technical yarns are used, and the pre-programmed machine knits them into the fabric in the different zones.

That product became the cutting edge that only the top teams could afford to wear,' Mike Wilson said. The special fibres encourage wicking (or transfer) of moisture away from the skin surface to the outer layer, where it evaporates.

When the full-time whistle blows, the player's skin surface is drier and rapid cool-down is minimised because the fabric dries five times faster than other jerseys.

At first, Temex was offered only to Canterbury's premium sponsored teams, such as the Super 12 sides, but in 2000 it was made available to all rugby teams.

Fase 1

So as said in the piece of text temex was first used by the major club and country teams that canterbury sponsored. The most famous ones are the temex super rugby jerseys from the new zealand teams like the Hurricanes, Crusaders, Chiefs, Blues and Highlanders. Other famous jerseys are the Waratahs temex jersey, Fiji 7s jersey, scotland sevens jersey. These temex jerseys were also sold to the fans.

Fase 2

Then came another phase. Because temex was so good for playing, clubs like the saracens had normal cotton supporters jerseys being sold, while the shirts the 1st team played in were temex remakes of those jerseys. Many different canterbury teams had temex jerseys as their playing jerseys

Phase 3

Temex became widespread. Dubai sevens. even small clubs like Kumeu had their own temex jerseys. Temex was becoming more and more available.

This may make it look like it was to become the norm for rugby jerseys, but then soon after it vanished. 

Difference in material composition

In its time Temex jerseys were made in different blends. In our research we could only confirm two and we don’t know how and when they swapped one blend from another but the two different blends are:

-52% cotton 48% polyester

-99% cotton and a little bit of nylon