Kings reveal armour for first-ever HoopsFest

The first-ever HoopsFest is upon us and the Sydney Kings are excited to unveil the uniforms for the historical event.

The uniforms, which the harbour city side will wear during their Sunday, September 22 game against Adelaide, were created by Hoops Capital's design lead Za Rathie with a particular style in mind.

"For the introduction of HoopsFest, I felt the challenge was to create a fresh interpretation of a King and question how to make that concept feel new again," Rathie said.

"As with how the regular season uniforms were designed, these uniforms represent the new chapter of the Sydney Kings while also having that tie to our heritage.

"My aim has been to make each Kings uniform this year feel distinct and unique – these uniforms have been inspired by a King playing card, one of the most common but iconic depictions of a King in everyday life."

Being the first-ever HoopsFest, which will be a four-day hoops extravaganza in Perth and the first game of the NBL25, Rathie admits had the opportunity to create something completely new but something that was also grounded in the Kings' rich history.

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As such, the three key points of difference for this uniform - to the Hoops Capital side's NBL25 home and away kit - are the wordmark, colour blocking and side panels.

"The jersey debuts the ‘K’ icon – inspired by a King playing card," he said.

"For consistency, the ‘K’ is the same font as our new ‘Kings’ and ‘Sydney’ wordmarks from the regular season uniform.

"We’ve treated this HoopsFest uniform as essentially an alternate away kit – we wanted to introduce a new colour combination to the white base we were given, making it unique among our other uniforms this season.

"The white, purple and black colour scheme hasn’t been used before on an away uniform.

"It reflects the colour story the Kings have maintained over the past few seasons.  

"The side panels have been borrowed from the Kings 1996 uniform.

"In the 1996 uniform, the side panel only went down the left side with ‘Sydney Kings’ written down the length.

"The HoopsFest uniform features mirrored striped side panels with the crown logo on the right leg of the shorts, in place of the text."

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Now seeing his designs in the flesh during the five-time NBL champion's recent media day, Rathie is excited about how they've turned out

"As a creative, it is always incredibly exciting and daunting to be given the opportunity to make a ‘first’ of anything," he said.

"It’s always my hope with each uniform, that fans can see and appreciate the thought process behind the designs.

"I'm hoping that these serve as a stepping stone for future HoopsFest uniforms to try something different and explore what a Sydney King can look like."

Sydney's HoopsFest jerseys will be available for purchase via the club store at 10am on Thursday, September 12am.

The Kings' first home game of NBL25 is on Sunday, September 25 against the Illawarra Hawks - tipping off at 2.15pm AEST.

Tickets for the Qudos Bank Arena showdown, between the two Adrian Hurley Cup rivals, are still available here.