Rugby Museum to host seminar on All Blacks jersey

The All Blacks celebrate the series win over Wales. Photo / Getty

The New Zealand Rugby Museum will be hosting a one-day seminar on the All Blacks jersey in Wellington on August 28.

The All Blacks jersey is first and foremost a sports uniform, designed to be worn on the world's toughest sports fields - but there is more to it.

It reflects a brand, has an incredibly history, has influenced the uniforms of many other New Zealand sports team; and playing jerseys have become collectable treasures.

Museums see it as an artefact to be interpreted and historians explain its broader significance. There is also demand by fans for replica memorabilia and with the increased commercialisation in modern rugby, the front of jersey is seen as a premium space by commercial partners. Above all, the jersey is a visible symbol of the All Blacks' aura, the link between rugby generations for All Blacks players past, present and future.

The New Zealand Rugby Museum are hosting this seminar to explore these different facets to the jersey, to include the legacy, social significance, manufacturing evolution, valuation, identification and provenance, the care of jerseys, labelling, cataloguing, display and storage.

"It will be an opportunity for those from the collecting, manufacturing, academic and museum worlds to share their knowledge, learn and to network," said NZ Rugby Museum director Stephen Berg.

"And it will also be the starting point of continued research and the beginning of a register of All Blacks jerseys".

Sir Brian Lochore, president of the museum, will open the seminar and amongst the speakers are Andrew Wilson, global marketing manager sport for adidas.

This unique event is being hosted in the Mana Tangata room of NZ Rugby on Sunday August 28 (the day after the Bledisloe Cup clash), and will be a fitting finale to a weekend of rugby and the beginning of a series of collaborations between the leading experts in their fields from around the world and all over New Zealand.

Rugby author and historian Ron Palenski will be on a round table panel, facilitated by Berg.

For further information or to book tickets, please contact amanda@rugbymuseum.co.nz