“Feel that material!” Neal Heard, football shirt collector, author, Instagrammer and all-round fanatic, is proffering a 1981 Juventus home shirt – one of his personal favourites. It is a timeless bit of kit that demonstrates the Italian eye for detail that makes Serie A the spiritual home of classic strips, but also encapsulates the humble football shirt’s dramatic evolution.

The rough-hewn collar and stitched-on panels lend an old-school feel but innovation is woven in. The thin, elasticated cotton was designed with player performance in mind. The player number is rendered in vinyl, with the Ariston sponsor patch an optional extra – supporters could choose whether to stitch it on or leave the black and white stripes unspoiled. Even for a club that remains fashion-forward, it is a cut above.

The Juventus shirt is one of a handful that Heard is whittling down for his ‘Iconic Eleven’ – the crème de la crème of vintage kits that will take pride of place at his exhibition, The Art of the Football Shirt. Opening in London on Wednesday, it celebrates the elevation of shirt design to an art form, and features a vast array of obscure outfits from Newport County to Eintracht Braunschweig.

That said, whether you are what Heard calls “an old-school football head” or, like him, you love the kits as much as the game, you can probably guess the items on this exclusive rail, from Brazil 1970 to Italy 1982.

There are enough classics here to make the most casual of kit nerds go weak at the knees – but one thing does unite the revered retro designs. They almost all mark the peak of a side’s powers, with some, like Hummel’s 1986 ‘Danish Dynamite’ shirt, representing the team more completely than any single player, goal or game.

Neal Heard (right) adds Holland’s Euro 1988 shirt to his ‘Iconic Eleven’. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

“If you or I, or the people walking past, looked at these shirts,” Heard says, gesturing to the bustling Brick Lane crowd outside, “we’d pick out the same memories. It’s something that fuses us together, like a universal language.”

Before Admiral, then a Leicester underwear manufacturer, signed a £7,000 supplier deal with Leeds United in 1973, shirts had served little purpose other than to tell teams apart. The sale of replica kits was followed by the introduction of shirt sponsorship, as colour TV transformed the game for armchair fans. Even so, football kits remained far from fashionable – but Heard explains that in the late 1980s the bold, block patterns of Holland and West Germany, showcased at Euro ‘88 and Italia ‘90, raised the design stakes.

“They kickstarted the streetwear approach, fashion in football shirts,” he says. “For the new generation they don’t necessarily wear a shirt because it’s their team.” Both shirts caused a stir at the time, as the two nations moved away from simplistic, timeworn outfits. “The Beckenbauer era design, plain white with the black collar, is an amazing shirt,” Heard says. “But the late-80s one lit a fire. These shirts were fashion statements.”

While the exhibition and accompanying book largely pay homage to the best efforts from the early 80s to the mid-90s, kits from all eras and continents make the cut. One corner of the gallery hails shirts given a certain cachet by musicians – from New Order to Oasis via Bob Marley.

Elsewhere designs with political overtones remind us that some shirts represent far more than club colours. There are kits adorned with LGBT rainbow symbols and shirts pledging support to left-wing sides St Pauli and Corinthians – the latter even promotes a democratic cause spurred on by Socrates himself.

From the Hull City tiger print shirts to Fiorentina’s unfortunate mid-90s away shirt, almost every curious kit design you can recall is on display here. Are there any shirts that have proved impossible to track down? “Levi’s made a shirt for Mexico in 1978,” Heard mutters ruefully. “But I can’t even find one to get a photograph.” As for the mint green away version of West Germany’s iconic kit, there is only one he has ever found – in a fellow enthusiast’s collection in Thailand.

Rarities like Fiorentina’s infamous away shirt and Brazilian third-tier side Medureira SC’s Che Guevara tribute will be on display. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

In the modern era the replica kit business has splintered in several different directions. Close to 60 brand new shirts will be released by Premier League clubs this summer, with Manchester United selling almost three million globally last year alone – more than enough to pay for Paul Pogba. Yet with quantity growing exponentially, it appears quality may have suffered, with a notable lack of new kits among this arthouse collection.

For Heard it is more a case of football fashion slowly coming back around to its heyday: “We’ve had 15 years of simple, plain designs and now I think it’s time to go back the other way,” he says, although after a glance at some of the more garish exhibits, he adds, “You don’t have to go crazy.”

Heard has little time for modern recreations of retro shirts, as seen everywhere from Huddersfield to Rome this year. “People loved the original shirts because they were cutting edge, so make something new that’s cutting edge instead.”

With supporters turned off by template designs, high turnover and higher price tags, the vintage market has experienced a boom. Classic Football Shirts, a company started by two Manchester students in 2006, now sells 300,000 vintage kits a year. More than half of those sales are European club shirts – backing the notion that modern fans may buy based on style rather than sentiment.

This modern counter-culture, fuelled by an internet age Heard admits has made collecting easier – “before then Boca Juniors kits never left Argentina” – even extends to a snazzy range of mock shirts created by fashion labels. It marks the next step in an extraordinary evolution and it is hard not to wonder what a West Ham fan in the 1980s would have made of all this if stumbling on it on their way to Upton Park.

The game has most definitely changed. Football kits old and new are big business, high fashion and bona fide gallery pieces. They can be politically charged, feature cutting edge design and stand as cultural reference points every fan can relate to. Whichever one you wear, one thing is for sure: it is more than just a football shirt.

The Art of the Football Shirt is open on Wednesday 26 and Thursday 27 July as part of the Jacket Required trade show in Shoreditch, London. The Football Shirts Book – The Connoisseur’s Guide is available online.