Inside hummel: The iconic Danish brand with honest values & big ambitions

"We are a heritage-driven sports and lifestyle brand," is the message from hummel.

This was how chief executive Lars Stentebjerg introduced the Danish company, whose name is known and loved around the sporting world, to a small group of assembled English and German media outlets, including 90min, during a special two-day event this month.

"We have a lot of heritage, that is who we are as a brand, to utilise in our product development, one voice to who we are and how we want to live. Our ability to blend really sets us apart."

The emphasis is on heritage, appreciating what has come before to help shape the future, with "brand identity and credibility" an equally important part of the journey of over more than 100 years.

Karma. Lifestyle. Heritage…is another key tagline philosophy the business attaches itself to.

The hummel story so far has been a rollercoaster. To Danes, the name is a national institution. To the rest of the world, it is inextricably linked with cult football kit culture of the 1980s and early 1990s.

The pinstripe half-and-half jerseys worn by the Denmark's 'dynamite' generation at the 1986 World Cup, reissued last year to celebrate hummel's 100th birthday, was ranked the greatest football shirt of all time by FourFourTwo magazine in 2022.

Jerseys also worn by prominent English sides Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa, Southampton and Sunderland more than 30 years ago are still considered classics of the kit game.

Diego Maradona wore a hummel Spurs shirt in a testimonial for compatriot Ossie Ardiles and footage exists of El Diego wearing Denmark's pinstripes the day before the 1986 World Cup final, having not actually faced the Danes in the tournament and acquiring it some other way. He was even in advanced talks to become a hummel-branded player himself at his history-defining peak, although a deal agonisingly fell through.

Real Madrid wore hummel for nine years from 1985 during the Quinta del Buitre era of Emilio Butragueno, Manolo Sanchis, Michel and others that delivered five La Liga titles in the first five seasons of the partnership. Denmark also unexpectedly enjoyed European Championship glory in 1992 in another famous hummel strip.

But hummel largely disappeared from the English club scene in the early 1990s, not to return until 2016. Their shirts remained a fond part of history for fans, although in some ways it began to feel like hummel was a relic of the past for audiences outside Denmark. And while the brand was still visible at international tournaments for a decade to come, the national team's crowning achievement at Euro '92 was also an ironically challenging moment for hummel.

Denmark didn't initially qualify for the competition, taking Yugoslavia's place at short notice when the Balkan region descended into conflict, and they weren't actually able to capitalise on the success due to the low value contract in place. Just two years later, hummel entered a state of technical bankruptcy.

By this time, hummel had been around for just over 60 years. Although deeply Danish now, the company was originally German, founded by entrepreneur Max Messmer and his father, Michael, in 1923 and known as Messmer & Co. The first creation was a cleated sports shoe, which Messmer Jr. had been inspired to make off the back of watching a football match in the rain and mud, where players were unable to keep their footing in the conditions.

That was brought to market under the name the 'HUMMEL', German for bumblebee. Even though rival fledgling German brand adidas was also starting up and creating its own products, hummel are considered pioneers of the modern football boot.

That would continue for decades when it became the first to steer away from traditional black boots, supplying Alan Ball's game-changing white footwear in 1970. White and every other colour boots are now commonplace from professional level to grassroots.

Changes of ownership in turbulent decades in the 1930s and 1940s, during which Europe descended into war again for the second time in little over 20 years, brought name changes and challenging economic times. Eventually, the company became Danish in 1956 and has been part of Denmark's sporting identity ever since. Still, a nod to history saw hummel become the permanent name and the bumblebee logo, which also features the iconic double chevron – a design staple, emerge.

Today, hummel has had steady ownership for 25 years. Christian Stadil acquired the business with his father, Thor, in 1999, by his own admission an opportunistic and cheap deal given the company's financial struggles in the preceding few years. While bigger brands like Nike, adidas and Puma, and even more direct rivals like Under Armour, are publicly traded entities with shareholders, hummel is privately owned by Stadil under his Thornico group. It leaves the brand able to "more or less do what we want" in terms of pursuing projects and ensuring that core values remain.

Stadil, a practicing Buddhist, has put his personality firmly into hummel. Immediately upon stepping into its pleasant waterside headquarters at Aarhus docks, visitors are greeted by an enormous sculpture of the businessman, who appeared on the first four series of Denmark's version of investor shows Dragons' Den and Shark Tank, sitting in a classic cross-legged Buddha pose with a football on his lap.

Those beliefs underpin what hummel, although still a business out to make profit, is all about. Among many global projects, hummel have opened football schools in The Gambia and worked with former child soldiers in Sierra Leone. The brand also created a trailblazing shirt with accompanying hijab for the Afghanistan women's national team, launched on International Women's Day in 2016.

One of hummel's longstanding passion projects is Christiania SC, an amateur club based in the close-knit commune of Freetown Christiania, set on part of an island with around 900 inhabitants inside the city of Copenhagen. A progressive Denmark was one of the first countries in the world where women had full voting rights by 1915, the first to grant legal recognition to same-sex partnerships in 1989, and enjoys a very strong social system. "As long as we have Christiania, we have some of this edge and these values. And that's why we like to associate ourselves with Christiania," Stadil explained.

What hummel has in large quantities is the freedom to be creative and expressive.

Although difficult to believe now given both their history together and the current bond, hummel and the Denmark national team split in 2004. The country's football federation (DBU) entered a partnership with adidas that lasted for 12 years until 2016, but it also coincided with a low point in Denmark’s history.

The men's national team failed to qualify for four out of six major tournaments, while exiting the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 at the group stage. The women didn't fare much better, reaching only one World Cup, knocked out early, and experiencing multiple European Championship group stage exits. In short, Denmark were in crisis.

So when they were reunited with the DBU in 2016, hummel wanted to make a statement. Their canvas was the national team kit and they leaned into and embraced the crisis. The result was a white monochrome strip, featuring crests, badges and even player numbering and names all without colour, to be worn for a one-off men's friendly against Liechtenstein. It was billed as clean slate and a fresh start for an underperforming national team, and the limited run immediately sold out.

A similar strategy for a very different reason was taken ahead of the 2022 World Cup, when hummel produced three monochrome red, white and black kits to honour the DBU's vow to wear jerseys that would criticise Qatar's human rights records. The black edition was so because it is a colour of mourning and Denmark saw themselves as symbolically attending the funeral of migrant workers who had died during the construction of the tournament’s stadiums and infrastructure.

In 2016, more than 20 years after producing their last shirts for an English club in the early 1990s, hummel returned to the UK kit scene. EFL club Charlton Athletic was the test ground for the re-entry.

New kits are unveiled to fans during the summer ahead of a given season, but those creations have been the subject of a year or more's worth of painstaking design work. Right now, for example, hummel's design teams are already working on the 2026/27 season.

Far more than what is released to the public never sees the light of day, albeit sometimes archived to be revisited for future ideas or inspiration, and even several physical prototypes can be produced that still don't go on to be the final product. On occasion, designs are even proposed for clubs with whom hummel is hoping to land a contract with, for the potential partnership deal to then fall through before it can be completed.

"...anything that ties the fans to the shirt."

- Rob Revell, hummel's lead designer, UK

"You kind of live and breathe that club, before you've even got it [on board]," is how Rob Revell, hummel's lead designer in the UK, puts it. That gives a window into the attention to detail that goes into creating a bespoke set of kits for each of the brand's professional partners.

"We walk around the city and we talk to people about what's important to them, not just the football club, but the area they're from. Coventry City is a perfect one, the cathedral kit [in 2022/23], everybody talked about the cathedral in Coventry and it's the most beautiful building. I can't believe, sometimes, if we go into a football club and they haven't looked at this stuff…anything that ties the fan to the shirt."

It isn't just player kits either, with hummel creating full training and lifestyle ranges to accompany what is seen on the pitch. You never knew you wanted a pair of Real Betis x hummel trainers until you saw they exist. And while hummel is internationally known as a teamwear specialist, giving amateur and grassroots clubs in various countries around the world the ability to pick their kit from a catalogue of pre-made designs, none of its professional club creations are templated.

That means, unlike is the case with bigger brands like Nike, adidas or Puma, where elite clubs regularly have to share templates, particularly obviously when it comes to the goalkeeper kit, hummel individually design everything. Each professional partner is offered what is proudly described as "true customisation".

That was something that appealed to Sunderland's new chief business officer David Bruce, who remarkably approached hummel before actually landing the job at his home-town club earlier this year. Bruce was previously in charge of marketing at Major League Soccer for 13 years but returned to Wearside to help drive the Black Cats back towards the Premier League.

Sunderland wore a hummel kit in the 1992 FA Cup final, during a previous six-year partnership, and were the brand's last UK partner before withdrawing in 1994. But Bruce wanted more than what the club had previously had with bigger names in the industry, bringing hummel back after 30 years and delivering some incredible kits directly inspired by the past and the city's individual heritage.

"We want to be authentic in our actions. Sunderland goes hand in hand with hummel." Sunderland's 2024/25 home shirt, featuring the unmistakable hummel chevrons, looks so good in long sleeves, that Bruce even claims credit on the club's behalf for restarting the wider trend this season.

Heritage is a common theme across hummel's professional kits. When it came to celebrating 100 years of the brand in 2023, they made shirts for eight partner clubs, which included Everton and Southampton at the time, individually inspired by Denmark's 1986 pinstripes. Retro vibes in modern football shirts are always a big hit and, at HQ in Aarhus, an east coast city on the Jutland peninsula around half an hour's flight from the capital, rotating archival rails regularly serve to help inspire designers looking for their next big idea.

Among those hummel is particularly proud of are Denmark's Euro 2020 shirts, which achieved a unique look when the soundwave of fans singing the national anthem before a game was captured and incorporated into the home and away designs.

Today, hummel is a resurgent force at home and internationally. Former chief executive Allan Vad Nielsen was in charge for seven years from 2017 until six months ago when he left to pursue his own entrepreneurial dreams. During that period, hummel's turnover more than doubled and, now with Lars Stentebjerg stepping into the role after three years as chief operating officer, ambitions remain high as the firm aims to almost double its annual revenues again by 2028, the equivalent of what would be an overall fourfold growth over 11 years.

What most people outside Denmark may not realise is hummel's pursuit of becoming an established lifestyle brand, creating casualwear, and an impressive trainer collection that adds new lines year on year. A kidswear division born in 2007 is also a growing operation and aside from the football operation, multiple display rooms in the Aarhus building, which has been hummel's base since 2011 but is already too small amid a reluctance to leave, show off the various ranges to potential retailers.

In 2020, parent company Thornico acquired Danish fashion label HALO, for which revenue has grown by a factor of ten in three years, and running brand Newline. A recent collaboration with HALO produced the special one-off Denmark shirt worn during this month's UEFA Nations League clash with Spain in Copenhagen, as well as a complementary designer lifestyle range.

In 2024/25, hummel has as many club partners in La Liga as Nike and Puma, each with three, and more than adidas. Werder Bremen represents the brand in the Bundesliga, and there are strong hopes Sunderland will imminently bring them back to the Premier League. Designs for clubs not yet officially announced as hummel partners are already underway too.

Ultimately, hummel wants to become the largest teamsport brand in Europe by 2028, and a target of 10,000 clubs globally from amateur level upwards in the next four years. The United States, where various pro clubs in the USL pyramid already wear hummel, and China have also been identified as emerging markets.

So while hummel might once have faded from international prominence, the iconic Danish brand is now back in a big way, ready to take on the world and change it too.

READ THE LATEST FASHION NEWS AND FEATURES FROM 90MIN