SANTA CLARA – What to do with the sleeves?

That proved to be the most difficult question during the 49ers' recent uniform redesign because of the opposing forces at work.

The first was a desire to return to a more classic look, one inspired by the duds the team wore in its Joe Montana glory days. The iconic symbol of those uniforms was the three-striped sleeves, which the players refer to as the candy stripes.

But whereas Montana's sleeves dropped nearly to his elbows, providing plenty of room for three broad stripes and even a number, today's players want hardly any sleeve at all.

As team chief operating officer Andy Dolich noted, football and basketball uniforms have been heading in opposite directions in the last quarter century. While NBA players prefer them as baggy as possible – Allen Iverson's shorts reach his calves – NFL players want their uniforms to be a second skin.

"It's all about holding," wide receiver Josh Morgan said. "The tighter the better. When it's tighter, (defenders) slip right off of you. The quicker we get off (the line of scrimmage), the faster we get downfield and the faster the ball gets out of the quarterback's hands."

But how do you stick three stripes on a tiny sleeve without it looking crowded? The 49ers went through six designs before they settled on a trick-the-eye solution: Only the top stripe goes all the way around the sleeve. The middle stripe goes three-quarters of the way around and the bottom one goes halfway around.

"Once it's on the player and his arm is down, it looks like there are three stripes," director of marketing Michael Williams said.

The rest of the uniform follows that less-is-more theme, from replacing the lacing at the crotch of the pants with a zipper – zippers are tighter – to going with a thinner stripe on the side of the leg that is less restrictive.

The uniforms also are 20 percent lighter than last year's. That's partly because the shadowing on the numbers and nameplates has been eliminated and partly because the team has gone with a thinner material that stretches better. Even the numbers and stripes have give, which wasn't the case with previous incarnations.

Tight end Delanie Walker was one of the first to try on a prototype.

"It felt more snug, more comfortable with pads, and it just gave me more ability to move my arms around in football motions," he said. "It's lighter. You can most definitely feel that it's lighter. When it gets wet, you can tell it's not going to be as heavy as the old one. That's the best thing going for it right now."

The 49ers also have given it a more form-fitting cut.

Equipment manager Steve Urbaniak said that when tailoring a player's uniform, he begins with one of three cuts – quarterback, lineman and skill player – and then further alters it to the player's liking.

"It's not something where we throw it on him and he goes out and plays," Urbaniak said. "We're doing everything special now. We're shortening the jersey, we're putting elastic in the waist, shortening the sleeve, doing alterations in the armpit area, making the body tighter based on the body shape – basically mapping the jersey onto the body."

The look of the new uniforms also has been getting rave reviews from the players, who favored the so-called throwbacks the team had been using twice a season.

Said Walker: "I think all the guys in the 49ers' organization love the throwback jersey. That plain white with the red numbers – it's simple, and that's saying a lot. To me, it's saying that the 49ers are a team. We're not trying to be too fashionable.

"We're going to come out here and hit you in the mouth."

Read Matthew Barrows' 49ers blog at www.sacbee.com/ ninersblog.