Chicago Bears 1920 Quarter Zip Cable Knit Sweater

That is what gives the Chicago Bears 1920 Quarter Zip Cable Knit Sweater a stronger historical foundation than a typical team graphic. Its navy body, orange-and-white striping, large Chicago Bears script and bear-head emblem present the team as it is recognized today, while the 1920 reference reaches back to the season when George Halas and the Decatur Staleys entered the new professional football league that would eventually become the NFL.

The quarter-zip collar and cable-knit-style surface move those football references into a different visual category from a game jersey. Instead of recreating an on-field uniform, the design combines Bears colors and imagery with the language of heritage sportswear, making more than a century of team identity feel at home on a structured cold-weather layer.

Chicago Bears 1920 quarter-zip sweater with navy cable-knit-style texture, orange-and-white striping, large script lettering and bear-head artwork.

1920 reaches back to the Bears before they were called the Bears

The date on the design points to the beginning of one of professional football’s oldest surviving franchises. In 1920, the team was still based in Decatur, Illinois, and known as the Decatur Staleys, named for the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company that sponsored it. George Halas represented the Staleys when the club joined the American Professional Football Association on September 17, 1920, making the franchise one of the league’s original members.

The familiar Chicago Bears identity developed over the following two years. The Staleys moved to Chicago in 1921, won the league championship that season as the Chicago Staleys and became the Chicago Bears in 1922. The Pro Football Hall of Fame records that Halas chose “Bears” partly because Chicago’s baseball team was the Cubs and football players were generally larger, making Bears a logical counterpart.

That progression makes 1920 more interesting than a generic vintage date. It represents the franchise before the modern name, bear imagery and decades of Chicago football history had accumulated around it. The Bears have since carried that origin forward as one of only two surviving charter franchises from the league’s first season.

The sweater therefore places a modern Bears presentation over the oldest point in the timeline. The current script, bear-head imagery and polished quarter-zip silhouette look backward toward a team that began as an industrial-company football club in Decatur.

Navy and orange connect the modern sweater directly to George Halas

The color palette carries its own piece of Bears history.

George Halas attended the University of Illinois before becoming the central figure in the creation and development of the Bears. In a 2026 history feature, the organization notes that Halas brought Illinois’ navy and orange colors with him to the Bears, creating a visual connection between his college background and the franchise he built.

That makes the navy base and orange accents on this sweater more than an easy modern team-color combination. The dark body gives the design most of its visual weight, while orange-and-white bands move across the chest, collar, cuffs and sleeves to repeat the same palette from several angles. Large script lettering then uses those colors again so the front remains recognizably Chicago even before the bear-head emblem is examined closely.

Front view of the Chicago Bears quarter-zip sweater showing the navy base, orange-and-white bands, Chicago Bears script and bear-head emblem.

The color story also fits the 1920 reference unusually well because both lead back to Halas. The year recalls the franchise he helped establish, while navy and orange preserve colors connected with his own athletic background. Instead of treating history as a separate anniversary badge, the design spreads it across the entire garment through date, palette and team imagery.

That relationship gives the sweater a more coherent visual identity than a navy top with one Bears mark placed on the chest. Almost every major element participates in the same team language.

Cable-knit patterning and a quarter zip shift football imagery into heritage sportswear

The silhouette changes how those references are presented.

A football jersey typically communicates through athletic construction, player numbering and game-uniform details. This piece instead uses a raised-looking cable-knit visual pattern, structured collar, quarter zip and striped trim associated more closely with classic collegiate and country-club layering. The Bears graphics are therefore being translated into a form that feels deliberately removed from the field.

That contrast works particularly well with a franchise whose history stretches back to the earliest years of professional football. Cable-knit styling already carries an old-school visual character, so placing Chicago Bears lettering, navy-and-orange striping and a 1920 reference across it creates a heritage look without having to recreate an actual uniform from the 1920 season.

The small equestrian-style chest mark and collar branding visible in the artwork add another preppy sportswear cue opposite the larger Bears imagery. Rather than competing with the football theme, those details help establish the visual framework: this is designed to look like a polished quarter-zip knit first, with Bears history layered across that silhouette.

Side view of the navy Chicago Bears sweater showing the quarter-zip collar, cable-knit-style surface and repeating orange-and-white sleeve bands.

The script across the chest is especially effective in that setting. Block athletic typography would push the garment closer to a uniform, while the flowing Chicago Bears treatment softens the sports reference enough to sit naturally beside the cable pattern and collared neckline. The bear-head emblem then restores a stronger football cue, preventing the sweater from becoming too detached from the team identity.

The finished design therefore brings together two kinds of heritage. One comes from the Bears themselves, beginning with the Decatur Staleys in 1920 and George Halas’ navy-and-orange palette. The other comes from the visual vocabulary of traditional quarter-zips, striped collegiate apparel and cable-knit sweaters.

Together, they make the 1920 reference feel integrated rather than decorative: the oldest date in Bears history is carried by a silhouette designed to look equally rooted in tradition.

Written by Dana Whitlock, Apparel & Print Specialist at DoesignUs.