Juventus have black and white. Roma have their deep red. The Netherlands aren’t the Netherlands without orange. And Fiorentina are purple. That’s just how things are, right?
But it’s such an unusual football colour that the club are simply known as La Viola – “The Purple”.
Add Florence, Gabriel Batistuta, some magnificent 1990s sponsors and several decades of Italian shirt design, and Fiorentina have developed one of football’s most recognisable visual identities. But here’s the strange bit.
They didn’t originally wear purple at all.
Why Do Fiorentina Wear Purple?
When they were founded in 1926, their shirts were red and white, reflecting the colours associated with Florence.
The famous story is that those shirts were washed together – supposedly in the River Arno – and accidentally emerged purple. Lovely story. But like most old wives’ tales from that era, it’s probably not true.
Historical material from the Museo Fiorentina records the introduction of a purple shirt in 1929 as a deliberate decision under club president Luigi Ridolfi. The new colour was intended to give the young club a unique and instantly recognisable identity.
Lega Serie A archival material offers another piece of the story: Ridolfi had admired the violet worn by Hungarian club Újpest, while purple also connected naturally with Florence through the city’s famous violet iris.
Whatever happened to the washing machine version – or river, rather – the decision worked. And has lasted ever since.
The Most Iconic Fiorentina Shirts
The wonderful thing about Fiorentina’s colour is that manufacturers haven’t needed to do very much with it.
Early shirts were wonderfully simple: deep violet, the Florentine lily crest and little else. Research conducted with the Museo Fiorentina has even shown how the precise shade changed over the decades as football moved from wool towards synthetic and modern technical materials.
Things became considerably more colourful once commercial sponsors arrived.
The 7UP shirts of the early 1990s remain collector favourites, particularly those associated with Batistuta’s early years in Florence. The green-and-red sponsor looked completely ridiculous against purple.
It was also brilliant. Then came perhaps the definitive Fiorentina shirt era.
Batistuta, Nintendo and Fiorentina’s Greatest Shirt Era (1997-99)
Between 1997 and 1999, Fiorentina wore Fila shirts carrying Nintendo across the chest.
Perfect club. Perfect sponsor. Perfect moment in time to define what was happening on the pitch.
Gabriel Batistuta was at his devastating best, Rui Costa was creating behind him and Serie A was packed with many of the world’s greatest players. The shirts themselves were unmistakably late-’90s: strong Fila branding, rich violet colouring and that Nintendo logo sitting beautifully across the middle.
Nintendo only sponsored Fiorentina for two seasons, yet those shirts have become some of the most recognisable retro football kits of the entire decade. Modern vintage-shirt retailers continue to single the partnership out as one of football’s defining sponsor combinations. The players obviously helped.
Batistuta remains the man most associated with Fiorentina purple, but Rui Costa, Francesco Toldo, Stefan Effenberg and later Luca Toni all added their own chapters to the shirt’s history. And one that’s been written on higher plinths than the time after.
Fiorentina’s Most Famous Shirt Sponsors
Fiorentina have actually assembled an unusually good sponsor history.
There was Opel during the 1980s, followed by Italian aperitif brand Crodino. The early ’90s brought Giocheria and then the much-loved 7UP partnership.
Sammontana followed before Nintendo arrived in 1997, with Toyota replacing it from 1999.
For collectors, 7UP and Nintendo are probably the two that stand furthest apart.
Part of that comes down to aesthetics, but nostalgia matters too. Sponsors become timestamps. Nintendo immediately evokes Batistuta, Rui Costa, Channel 4’s Football Italia and an era when Serie A felt impossibly glamorous.
Why Fiorentina Shirts Still Work as Fashion
Purple is unusual. And most high fashion is deliberately unusual.
Very few major European clubs have made the colour entirely their own, which means a Fiorentina shirt doesn’t immediately look like another red, blue or white football top.
The club’s association with Florence doesn’t hurt either. This is a city synonymous with art, design and fashion, and Fiorentina’s kits have always felt naturally connected to that identity.
Vintage examples are particularly wearable. A 1990s Fila/Nintendo or Lotto/7UP shirt has enough colour and graphic design to work as a fashion piece even if the person wearing it isn’t heading anywhere near the Stadio Artemio Franchi.
Fiorentina spent their first few years trying to find an identity. They chose a colour almost nobody else wanted. Nearly 100 years later, you’d struggle to imagine them wearing anything else.
What’s your favourite Fiorentina shirt of all time?