So I took on a project... what turned into a big project! The 2021/22 Aston Villa away shirt, inspired by the European Cup winning shirt of the 80's, looked straight forward. Easy to source sponsor, nice and cheap, easy fix. Not quite so much. The more I looked at it, the more it became apparent, an almost full restore was required. Lovely shirt, and I'm sure we'll find a new home for it, but not quite such an impossible to find top... so was the restore worth it?
What was wrong with it?
When purchased, a Mings 5 nameset shirt, with a little bit of an issue with a missing sponsor letter, suddenly became:
- Missing neck sizing
- Missing letter in Cazoo
- Sponsor letters cracking
- All three Kappa logos peeled or missing
- Kombat System logo falling apart
- 1981-82 graphic missing
- Mings cracking
- 5 cracking and peeling
It might have been easier to say what was right with it! The only things left standing were our wash labels, BasicLabels tag, Aston Villa badge, the Premier League patch and the Kombat logo on the rear. Everything else needed to go...
How did things go?
Beautifully... well, not so much. As so much had already cracked and melted, as the sponsors and logos came off, VLR and co made light work of the rest, but tiny residuals started bleeding into the shirt, creating a lovely pinky/burgundy stain all over. Wonderful! Never one to panic, and one to trust the process, I lifted everything off piece by piece, rubbed down with some DTF remover to get the remaining glue residue off, which left a clean, but stained shirt. The back was an easier run, with barely any removal issues there thankfully. However, a white shirt with stains all over didn't look great.
Next step. Cleaning
When removing sponsors and the like, it is always easy to fall into the trap that you have made it irreparably worse. It generally is never at that stage, and something can always be done. Cleaning then started with some SpotSolve to lift the majority. Most started moving, but the pink still hung around as a faint discolour. Next step, fabric pre wash stain remover... some elbow grease... and a rubber scrubber. Even just a short scrub lifted everything to the surface. The most important thing I can highlight during this process is to try and not let it dry. Keep it damp/wet/soaked as mush as possible, and avoid heat. With a quick five minute soak of the pre wash, some Vanish and detergent and a 30 minute cold wash awaited. Keep it cool an a max of 30 degrees, with your shirt inside out to protect the sponsor etc... if there's any left!
Any luck?
Pristine, and a perfect white base. Having been previously heat pressed, there were a few ghosting outlines, but to be honest, this was expected, and a big help. Using these tiny outlines let us line everything up to within a micrometre, for a flawless finish. The second pass of the press also acts as a pre press ghost remover, so all the helpful tiny marks, disappeared completely.
Do it again?
Yes. Having had to design all of the graphics, I now have a full, perfect sized stock of each and every graphic which can be used again, even the 1981-82 which was manually redrawn as the logo didn't exist any where. Restored back to almost new (no collar sizing to protect the 1981-82 graphic), it is ready for a brand new home and to be enjoyed by another Villa fan. Check out the shirt with all of the restoration details via the link below.
