Text by John Howlin

These days, I like prosciutto & mozarella for lunch, espresso afterwards and Caravaggio is my Don. However, as an old Kopite,  I have served my time though on a few Football Special trains with lads in Diadora Borg Elite trainers and Kappa track tops; Slazenger V necks underneath. A lot of pastel on show. We were “nice” boys in our pastels. I guess I’m second, maybe third generation when it comes to original Scallies. 

It’s a well covered story these days of how Liverpool lads and the Glaswegians discovered European sports labels at away games around the overlap of the 70’s & 80’s. Best not to drift into stories of the que outside Wade Smith in town to get Adidas Columbia’s because they had the coloured pegs in. There’s a part of that time in my choice of career as a vintage picker.

What got me excited recently was a discovery made whilst away picking vintage stock for ATIKA “on the continent”. An away day of sorts. In the past I’ve grinned from ear to ear after finding a pair of CP Company trousers or a Batistuta Fiorentina shirt but this time got well giggly when a batch of 100 or so proper late 1980’s Paninaro sweaters came in to view. This is some beautiful stock. 

Paninaro means sandwich boys. Milanese (originally) kids who hung around sandwich shops, went the match, rode scooters and made the word ciao sound more like it translates to “you want to be me”. This is also a time when Italian football was the best in the world. Italia 90 was a branding phenomenon for their teams, money flowed from TV deals and they seemed to have all the best players. Italian football culture was fucking sick back then and into the 90’s.

There’s a lot to like there but it’s the clothes really. I wonder whether there was a bit of cross pollination; were curva boys bringing influence back from lads on the end at British European fixtures? Maybe. It’s the pastel shades that interest me here as we were wearing lemmon yellow Lacoste cardigans at Anfield around 1983/84. 

The look is based around repro mid century Americana. Levis 501’s, shearling bomber jackets, RayBan Wayfarers for example. Us British lads might have to work on the pose and walk though. 

As the look matured brands like Best Company, Stone Island/CP Company, Moncler, Timberland went with them and took a bit of the Paninaro to terraces world wide. You’ll see Stoney’s from Walthamstow FC to Stamford Bridge and on to Miami but I have still never seen a propper scouser wear that badge. 

Every now and then I’ll be in store at ATIKA and see an Italian family, Northern, Lombards probably; Milano. How can you tell? The Dad still looks like an ace Paninaro!