The Blood in Blood out project was started back in 2004 as a design research on Heraldry (creating coat of arms) and especially the part ‘Marshaling’: dividing crests. I used football shirts to express this visual language in a new form and started to exhibit the collection of divided shirts internationally. I was able to tell stories within one or with more shirts together. Stories on rivalry, cultural connections, about relations between countries, cities, clubs and eventually of people.

I published a book in 2010 to show the state of the collection with a tour ‘through Europe’. And with that exposure I was approached by many people asking for personal shirts. Making people shirts especially those who have parents of different descent. A Portuguese shirt mixed with Greece because it showed the guy’s bloodline. And that was for me coming to the essence of the project: making people their true identity by showing bloodlines or a career. So now the Blood in Blood out brand makes those kind of shirts on request and we work towards a new publication. We want to make that ultimate book and show what we do. This time it wont be a story about heraldry, this time the shirts we make and display will tell the story about the person that wears it.

My team and I run this brand which is still more an art project rather than a marketed product line. We make unique bespoke pieces for people on demand and most of the time just for the fun of it. We do it for the love of the game, being football players ourselves, designers of shirts we love to wear and we are inspired by our background and next of kin being brought up in a multicultural neighborhood. We see our brand as a way to tailor football players, supporters and entourage of all divisions to their identity and sport nobility, hence our slogan ‘The Blue Blood of Football’. We would like you to be part of it.

Floor Wesseling

Founder of Blood in Blood out