Preds Reverse Retro Jersey Combines Past and Present with Fresh Look

Within the span of just a few months, a design on a computer screen has become the newest look in Predators franchise history.
The Preds unveiled their adidas Reverse Retro ADIZERO Authentic jersey on Monday morning, an ensemble that pays homage to Nashville's roots as an NHL club while presenting a fresh look for the entire fanbase.
"The adidas Reverse Retro program creates a new formula to showcase the passion of the fans," the Predators said in a press release to commemorate the occasion. "The overarching design theme during adidas' two-year-long process was to mine each team's jersey archive and team colors, remixing them to create something new and never seen before. For the Nashville Predators, the Reverse Retro design revisits the team's first season in the NHL - 1998. The speed nicks in the numbers, striping pattern, silver touches and remastered crest all pay homage to the original Preds jersey, while the bold, Gold body offers a new interpretation of the design."
One of the individuals tasked with that design calls this reveal his favorite one yet.

Predators Director of Creative Services Chuck Stephens has had a hand in designing a number of Nashville's jerseys over the years, but his department took ownership of this project while combining vintage flair with modern functionality.
"It's really cool from the perspective of getting to work with something new," Stephens said. "We do a lot of the same kind of stuff all the time - we do probably 1,000-plus projects a year with the same two colors and the same logo and mostly the same font - so, it's fun in an art school kind of way to get a new creative brief and have to work through it."
That process involved sending six options back to adidas and the NHL, and after some back and forth, Stephens and the Preds decided they wanted to honor their origins and build off of the team's first jersey, "which we lovingly call the 'Spacesuit Jersey' because of the silver sleeves."

The Reverse Retro jersey has essentially the same material to create that silver color, while another fan favorite - the skull shoulder patch - has also made a return. There are also other familiar elements that have been used in past seasons, including a revamped version of the original Pred-head logo front and center and the "cut-in" numbers from the original jerseys.
"It's much more anthropomorphic than music based," Stephens said of the Reverse Retro. "I feel like our current jersey is very music based; it's got the guitar pick, it's got the guitar lines - this is much more anthropomorphic, meaning it's got the sharp angles like a saber-toothed tiger would, it's got the silver in there, and it's just all about those sharp, aggressive lines."
As a designer, Stephens always has jersey concepts in the back of his mind, but bringing one to life is a rare treat.
"We always traffic in these blogs, subreddits, Twitter threads about people coming up with jersey concepts, so it's always something to be thinking about," Stephens said. "It's cool to actually get to go from a creative brief to a finished product. That's something I've gotten to do in pieces and parts over my career…but I feel like this was really something that we said, 'Here's what we want,' and everybody signed off on it. Once we settled on a couple of options, it moved forward with hardly any pushback."

Each NHL club also released their own Reverse Retro jersey on Monday, and teams will sport those sweaters on multiple occasions this season with special head-to-head matchups that will be announced at a later date. In the meantime, fans can gear up in preparation for those outings.
The jerseys are currently available for preorder at Nashville Locker Room,
NashvilleLockerRoom.com
, adidas.com or NHLShop.com. Plus, when ordering on
NashvilleLockerRoom.com
by Nov. 30, all Season-Ticket Citizens will receive 30 percent off.
Perhaps you'll encounter the same feeling Stephens had when he saw the jersey in person for the first time.
"We had a shoot with [Preds Captain] Roman Josi last Friday, and just seeing it on a player coming down the hallway was definitely the coolest jersey creation experience that I've had," Stephens said. "Knowing that this was really our internal brand brought to life was fun."