If you haven’t been served an ad for a rugby shirt in the last week, your algorithm might be broken. The thick cotton long-sleeves have been everywhere this fall, with the sidewalks outside NYFW serving as a secondary runway for the prep-adjacent staple. The rugby is back in a big way, but its habit of cycling in and out of fashion isn’t new—it’s been part of this garment’s playbook since the 19th century.

Before the rugby shirt became the uniform of choice for everyone from downtown cool kids to real-deal rock stars to your fisherman uncle in Maine, it was literally that: a uniform. Designed for English schoolboys, the earliest versions were pure utility. “Pupils wore what was readily available to them,” says Phil McGowan, curator at the World Rugby Museum in London. “This included undershirts and duck trousers, too. The jerseys would all be given a pot-boil wash, which made white the obvious choice as it was the easiest to wash and most commonly available.”

Shirts were outfitted with soft rubber buttons, rather than metal, so a collision wouldn’t leave you with a black eye from your kit. Even the numbers and letters on the backsides of the jerseys have a story. The first markings appeared in 1897, though it wasn’t until 1998 that numbering became standard across the game. Just two years ago, England’s team added player names for the first time. “The players themselves drove this change as a means to increase fan engagement and player recognition,” says McGowan.

The details may feel small, but that’s how the rugby shirt has endured. It’s made subtle evolutions over nearly two centuries, suggesting that its original design was nearly spot on from the start. “Color and symbolry is perhaps the most prominent traditional expression we see in the rugby shirt, but even these have changed for several international sides,” says McGowan. “Ireland first played in stripes; Australia has played in blue, green and gold at different times. Heritage has perhaps become more important in recent years, and a good example is Australia’s incorporation of Indigenous patterns in some of their jerseys. Tartan has also been featured in the Scotland jersey for quite a few years now.”

David Hockney, 1971

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2Pac, 1993

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Practicalities have become more important, too. In more recent years, manufacturers tinkered with the silhouette’s details, like removing the signature sturdy white collar in some instances. Other tweaks were more outlandish. “In our collection at the World Rugby Museum is a 2003 prototype England ‘Outside Back’ garment,” says McGowan. “It’s described as an all-in-one, jersey-and-shorts garment, but effectively it’s a leotard. It was proposed by Nike at the time but never worn.”

That leotard prototype never stood a chance—too much Lycra and not enough legacy. When rugby shirts turn up in fashion, it’s heritage, not high-tech, that makes the cut. “The rugby is definitely a heritage item,” says Rami Helali, co-founder and CEO of Kotn. “Heritage and fashion have moments where they meet, and today the rugby’s having one of those moments. There’s been a resurgence of prep, of ’90s and 2000s nostalgia, and people are moving away from the ultra-minimalist period we had previously. So today those two things are meeting again.”