Russell Athletic is over a century old and was founded by Benjamin Russell in Alabama. Although the company began by manufacturing women’s undergarments, as they became an established company, they would invest in developing new products, and in 1920 Benjamin Russell would invent the cotton jersey, or as its commonly known today, the sweatshirt. New product innovations helped diversify Russell Athletics product line, giving it enough sales strength to buy competitor Southern Manufacturing Company, further adding to its portfolio of sports team apparel manufacturing.

Going from strength to strength, Russell Athletic would become the biggest manufacturer of athletic apparel in the US in the 1960s and was being headed by Thomas Russell, Benjamin’s son, at the time. Although they are a US legacy company, they were one of the first to start offshoring production in the 1970s, mostly to Latin America, but this was still only a small part of their production, which mostly expanded across the Southern states of America. In 1985 the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange and just two years later would be listed in the Fortune 500. By 1995 it was the team supplier for 25 of the 28 Major League Baseball teams, cementing its dominance in sports apparel. In 2006 Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway bought Russell Athletic and brought it into the Fruit of the Loom group.

Russell Athletic has expanded globally in the last 20 years through licensing deals with manufacturers in Europe, Japan, Australia, and South Africa. In 2017 the company announced they would be stepping away from uniform manufacturing but reversed this decision when they announced a partnership with Augusta Sportswear to create sports uniforms again. An awesome showcase of the new direction of Russell Athletic is their collaboration with Hugo Boss. Using styles inspired by 1980s and 1990s off-court basketball culture, it is a nostalgic, yet fashion-focused range that shows their desire to become a casual clothing company rather than simply a sportswear company.

Rare 90s Russell Athletic Advert featuring NFL Proline

How to tell if Russell Athletic is vintage from the logo

Russell Athletic gets its name from a combination of its founder, Benjamin Russell and its original company mission, which was to provide uniforms for sports teams. This name has become iconified through the branding partnerships Russell Athletic has had dozens of US sports teams at all levels from amateur to professional. The infamous ‘Eagle R’ logo debuted in 1906 and has since proliferated all over the world but is especially recognizable in the USA.

In the last 20 years, the company has put more focus on creating their own casual clothing lines instead of outfitting sports teams. This means that the logo has been used more frequently and visibly on Russell Athletic clothing, however older pieces may require you to look at the tags to see and compare your logo to the ones below. Although the official company logo has only been updated once in 2004, unofficial logos can be observed in the early stages of Russell Athletics history.

1950s to 1960s Russell Athletic logo

• The earliest example of a Russell Athletic logo we could find is the first one below
• It says Russell Southern Co, in reference to its merger with Southern Manufacturing Company in 1932
• The font is a script at an angle in orange
• The next one ran into the 1960s and has the word Russell which is warped to be thinner in the middle, and passes through a red circle
• And the writing is black
• The final logo of the 1960s puts the R in a shield and has Russell written in Golden
• As you may notice the logo referred to the brand as just Russell in the late 1960s, which is something to watch out for when identifying vintage

1970s Russell Athletic logo

• The 1970s saw the official introduction of the ‘Eagle R’ logo, although it had been used on designs and a few rare tags up to this point
• From here on the structure of the logo was an emblem combined with text
• The emblem is an ‘R’ with the kick of the R being the head of an eagle
• The text that accompanied it was blocky in the early 1970s, however the logo from the late 1970s had a script font written over the emblem

1980s to now Russell Athletic logo

• The most commonly known Russell Athletic logo was debuted in the 1980s and is still used (sometimes with slight sizing variations) to this day
• It uses the ‘Eagle R’ emblem
• And has a blocky font
• It also established a new and longstanding color scheme for the logo of blue with a red eagle

2004 to now Russell Athletic logo

• This variation of the logo is currently running in conjunction with its predecessor
• It is the same in terms of style and structure, however it is now italicized, usually with the word Athletic being smaller than Russell
• Because of how recent this logo is, seeing it is a sign that your Russell a sign that your Russell Athletic probably isn’t vintage

How to tell if Russell athletic is vintage from the neck tags

Over the years Russell Athletic has sponsored some of the biggest sporting teams in the world. These include all MLB teams, 11 of the 32 NFL teams, the Harlem Globetrotters and over a dozen US college teams. Many of these sponsorships were in the 1990s, which means they are the manufacturer of sportswear from some of the most iconic teams in sporting history. Russell Athletic clothing from the Dallas Cowboys for example, are very valuable and highly sought after. So by comparing tags we can start to see if your Russell Athletic is from an iconic era or not, but just before we do there are a few things to bear in mind that could indicate if your Russel Athletic is vintage or not.

The first is that Russell Athletic moved its care information onto wash tags at the hip in the late 1990s. So, if you Russell Athletic has care tags at the hip theirs a good chance its from the 2000s onwards. Also look out for the country of manufacture. Although Russell Athletic was one of the earliest textile companies to start producing outside of the USA, most of its manufacturing until the 2000s was done inside the USA. This means anything made outside the USA is more likely to be modern. A final giveaway that Russell Athletic is modern is if the Russell is all in lower case, as seen in the 2010s example tags below.

Need help with your vintage tags? Upload a picture on our vintage tag identification page, and we’ll assist you!

1950s vintage Russell Athletic tags

• Early Russell Athletic tags were very simple
• They just had the letter size, and the logo
• The writing was often stitched in, and the fabric used for the tag was quite thick

1960s vintage Russell Athletic tags

• Some of the tags from the 1950s carried over into the 1960s
• A new tag was introduced
• It had a new logo and the letter and number size
• It also had composition information on it

1970s vintage Russell Athletic tags

• The new and now famous ‘Eagle R’ logo was used on tags from the 1970s onwards, however a variety of different fonts for the text would be used over this decade
• The tags started to include care information on the back of them
• In the late 1970s the tags would become a thinner polyester with the information printed on them, and some would start to state the country of manufacture

1980s vintage Russell Athletic tags

• The more complete Russell Athletic logo is used on these tags
• It has letter sizing and states the country of manufacture
• And has care information on the back

1990s vintage Russell Athletic tags

• The design of the 1990s tags was very similar, and in some cases the same as the 1980s
• However, the fabric used for them was a slightly higher quality
• Some also used inverted colors

2000s vintage Russell Athletic tags

• The new logo variation was used on many tags
• However, many of the tags remained the same as the 1990s
• One difference to look out for over this time is the country of manufacture being outside the USA

2010s vintage Russell Athletic tags

• Many of the most recent tags have reverted to lower quality polyester tags with the information printed on
• A lot of these tags have the sizing in multiple languages, such as ‘XL – EG – TG’
• Some of Russell Athletics team sponsorships use higher quality tags that are completely sewn in and say ‘Team Issue’