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Looky there! A new-fangled slideshow thingy!

And looky here! A review of the new Blue Jays uniforms from a a bonafide fashion expert!

Toronto-based fashion writer and friend of the blog Emma Yardley has helped us out in the past. What makes her qualified to give a professional review of the new uniforms? Lots of things! Not the least of which is the fact she is the Associate Editor of sweetspot.ca. She has been featured in too many magazines and newspapers for me to list here. AND she’s on twitter and blogs about fashion.

So what does Emma have to say about the new uniforms?

Obviously, the Blue Jay’s design team took what I said the last time I weighed in on the uniforms to heart. (Glad to know they’re fans of Infield Fly.) Gone is the Angry Bird blue-jay head, the black is back to the blue and the weird grey J-swoosh is history.

Speaking of history, that’s where they’ve gone and, in my opinion, that’s where they should stay. Play on our nostalgia, people. That’s how it works in fashion, that’s how it should work in sports, too.

Each (fashion) season, designers pull ideas from the history archives and create collections of clothes that evoke a certain time that they feel with resonate with the modern customer. It may be the entrepreneurial spirit of the Wild West, it could be the opulence of the 80s, but these cultural curators know how to fill a hole we feel we’re collectively missing…with clothes.

That is what the Blue Jays are doing with these uniforms. They’re taking us back to our childhood rec rooms, shag carpet and all, and reminding us of the Jays’ glory days. It’s a smart move. It’s an obvious move. I usually am all for surprises, but for once I was glad I wasn’t shocked when they revealed these new/old uniforms. Instead, I felt comforted. In these unstable times, that is exactly what we need.

(p.s I still think they should drop the red maple leaf from the jay head, though, and relegate it to the back of the uniform. Let the jay speak for itself. Sorry, boys.)

Emma’s right, times are unstable and, while it may be a trivial matter overall, it is a bit comforting to see the Jays embracing the past that we (mostly) all remember so fondly.

Also: That maple leaf is a little whacky.

Big thanks to Emma for helping us out yet again, and please do check out her other work.

The new Toronto Blue Jays logo

I’ve done a lot of griping about the Blue Jays logo and uniforms on the site. But no more.

The Blue Jays have unveiled a new logo and new uniforms for the 2012 season. There’s a quickly thrown together gallery for those few who haven’t seen it yet.

The new design, while not perfect, is roughly a trillion times better than the angry bird it’s succeeding.

Alternate jersey

Maybe not surprising, since one of my chief criticisms of the previous uniforms is the lack of the colour blue, but my favourite of the new jerseys is the alternate, what with it being blue and all.

Stay tuned, as a friend of the blog and real-life fashion expert will provide us with a review the new uniforms.

But in the meantime, what do you think? Is the new design an improvement? Which jersey is your favourite? Let us know in the comments.

Anybody who’s met me will likely understand how laughable my commenting on fashion is yet, not that long ago, I did just that. Much like a guy walking around an art gallery loudly proclaiming “I don’t know from art, but I knows what I likes,” I recently voiced my displeasure with the Torontos’ current logo and uniform.

But, personal preference aside, fashion is an art. What’s considered “in” or “out” of fashion, what’s timeless? I don’t know. But I do know someone who does.

Emma Yardley is a fashion expert. Her work, as both a fashion writer and editor, has been featured in too many magazines and newspapers for me to list here. She’s on twitter and blogs about fashion. And she’s nice enough to rattle off a response when I ask her opinion on the “classic Jays uniform vs. modern Jays uniform” question.

I set up a couple of photo galleries, asked Emma for her for her thoughts on the two sets of uniforms and her response was pretty interesting:

There are very few rules in the fashion world. Fashion-forward people strive to break out of the boring everyday uniform and wear something that excites and interests the people around them. But if you’re on a baseball team, rather than Vogue’s editorial team, my advice is keep your clothes clean and classic.

Now maybe it’s childhood nostalgia from sorting through my brothers baseball cards or that I prefer realistic drawings to angry cartoon drawings, but the old Blue Jays uniform is by far the superior outfit. The typography is simple yet bold, the blue jay looks like a blue jay, and the colour palette is neutral and universally flattering.

The modern uniforms look, well, cheesy. While I do actually prefer the black, navy and slate grey (the classic uniforms should lose the red in my opinion), the lettering font is dated and no style-conscious person would ever put that on their body. It makes me ask, why did they change it in the first place?

I understand that redesigning a uniform is a way to create new revenue and drum up media interest for the team, but I’m not sure the modern uniforms would get the positive reaction they might have been looking for. A solution would be to combine the two looks into one cohesive design, taking the strengths from each and dropping the weak points, but that might just be a little too fashion forward.

So there we have it. An expert opinion. While I agree the old uniforms are superior, I don’t know how I feel about dropping the red — that’d drastically change the logo, and that’s my favourite part of the old uniform. But I’m not impartial. As much as I might argue against it, maybe it is nostalgia that keeps me clinging to the old unis.

Or, more likely, I have no fashion sense.