The Northwestern University Wildcats, currently spending time before the basketball season starts in Italy and Greece, have unveiled a new “White Gothic” uniform. If you’re not familiar with the hoops team but follow college football, you’ll know the Cats have been wearing a black “Gothic” uniform, with purple and gold accents, for several years now.
In fact, the basketball team also has been wearing a black gothic uniform for a couple seasons.
The team will add the new white uniforms to their hoops ensembles for the upcoming season. Let’s take a look.
Several team members posed in front of the Duomo di Firenze, one of the world’s greatest masterpieces of gothic architecture, for the photoshoot. Unfortunately, the team was not shown wearing a full uniform (only jerseys), but based on the design of the black uniform, we can probably surmise how the white shorts will look.
The white jersey basically mirrors the black shown above, and features “Northwestern” (in upper/lower case) written in a “gothic” font. Numbers are in purple, with a gold outline, and the arm holes and neck feature a gold/purple/gold stripe. The rather large maker’s mark, located at the base of the collar, interrupts the neck stripe.
The rear of the jersey has the University’s “N” logo (in purple with gold outline) at the base of the collar. Beneath that is a purple block font NOB, and finally player number in purple outlined in gold. There is a sublimated pattern to the jersey (which I honestly can’t tell whether it’s for performance/wicking sweat, or unique to the NU campus). If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the former.
The team has not indicated when the new uniforms will be worn. The Wildcats season begins on November 8th, when they take on Lehigh.
I’m not a fan of the football team wearing their black gothic uniforms, although they usually keep it to one game a season (and it’s often a game near Hallowe’en), but I actually don’t mind it for hoops.
For 2023-24, the team had four different hoops uniforms, but it wasn’t mentioned if they’ll simply add this to their existing set or if it will replace one of the other uniforms.
While I’d like to see the jersey and shorts, they will probably be similar to the black shorts on that gothic uniform, which features prominent gold stripes on the sides and hems. I’ll need to see them on the court and in action to render a full judgment, but if they are a rarely-worn alternate, they’re fine. If you’re curious as to why the team has adopted the “gothic” font and motif, way back in 2014, when the first football uniforms were unveiled, the school said “‘Northwestern’ is spelled out on the front of the jersey in a typeface taken from the signs that are ubiquitous on the Evanston campus, with the distinctive spoked ‘T’.” Yes, that was an early instance of storytelling, but they’ve stuck with it for 10 years.
Your thoughts?
Northwestern’s women’s lacrosse team has been wearing black gothic tops as alternates since 2019. Damn fine uniform.
Much nicer looking in white, than in black
In addition to the four unis at the link, they also wore their “Chicago’s Own unis last year. link These might replace those.
I agree with Rick that these are better than the black versions. Go Cats!
Was in Florence a few months ago. The Duomo was incredible. These uniforms are not
I really like them, except for that pointless collar logo on the back. The font is distinctive enough that they don’t need to remind people of who is playing on both the front and the back. If you have to have that kind of logo, have it below the number so that the NOB and logo can frame the number.
As an NU alum, I’m a fan. The black ones look great on the basketball team—one of the few BFBS uniforms I actually like (possibly because the black color and typeface are ubiquitous on campus signage). That said, I don’t like the Gothic football uniforms nearly as much.
I’m curious to see what happens to the “Chicago’s Own” uniform set. I understand that one was developed with input from the players, a tradition they’ve established under Coach Collins for the past few seasons. The first player-designed kit from a few years back was dark gray and had sublimated images chosen by the players including a grilled steak of all things.
This white Gothic kit might be the replacement, though I’m hoping it’s a replacement for the gray uniform, and we see another player-designed uniform closer to the start of the season.
Maybe it is because of the smaller numbers than the Notre Dame Shamrock Series sham but this looks much better. If you insist on looking Gothic this is the way. Better in white than in black version, I agree.
Thank you for the pretentious rendering of “Halloween”. Gave me both my daily laugh and eye roll.