The collaboration pays homage to a time when working-class children, football fans, and students would gather together in abandoned warehouses, office blocks, and fields to rave to a unifying beat.

The baggy aesthetic, characterised by oversized, androgynous clothing, became the uniform of the rave scene, blending elements from sportswear, club culture, and workwear to create a distinctly Northern identity. As Umbro's casualwear began to move from football terraces to dancefloors, MTV was transforming pop culture with 24/7 music videos that provided the pre- and post-rave sounds for the nation's party-goers.

The Umbro X MTV collection for Spring/Summer '23 combines casual sports-inspired silhouettes with a range of graphic prints and colours inspired by the 1980s and 1990s rave scene. The fusion logo intertwines the Umbro and MTV famous brand marks alongside a warped all-over checkerboard print, while the fabrics evoke the '90s with a shell suit-inspired nylon crinkle and a polyester micro-let fabric.

The collection is designed with slightly oversized cuts for a genderless fit. The collection also includes footwear and accessories, such as the Copley Checkerboard Sneaker, a Cap, and a bag.

Featuring in the new collection’s campaign is Manchester band Porij. Musically inspired by the same era which informs the Umbro x MTV collab, NME described Porij as ‘Manchester’s most danceable new band’. In terms of musical style, NME described ‘each song becoming fiercer and more acidic as it progresses, as slippery basslines dissolve into swirls of echoing electronics, before sharply springing back into focus’. Just the sound then to front Umbro x MTV’s contemporary take on an era in the UK which would springboard dance music onto the global map while defining Manchester as the beating heart of the baggy revolution. 

The Umbro x MTV collab is available to buy now at www.umbro.co.uk.