6 Examples of Sportswear Evolving Into Timeless Fashion
How Sports Kit Became Mainstream Fashion
Sportswear has taken over fashion, and its dominance over our best-loved styles is only increasing.
Read on to understand the intrinsic link between fashion and sport - including the history of some of our favourite outfits!
Nike Air Jordans - a classic example of sportswear fashion
Today, trends are dominated by garments that once belonged solely to sports, with some of the world’s favourite clothing and accessories holding a surprising sporting history.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that Nike is the world’s most valuable fashion brand today.
However, the fact that the top 12 also features other sporting retailers like Adidas and Lululemon, along with many brands that offer sports goods, it’s clear that our favourite pastimes are intrinsically linked to our sense of style.
In fact, if you look far enough back into the origins of many fashion items today, you may be surprised to see they were developed with sport in mind.
Let’s take a deeper look into six examples of how sportswear evolved to become a timeless fashion staple!
The Polo Shirt
The classic tennis polo shirt
Although the origins of the polo shirt stem back to polo fields of the 19th century, it was actually another sport - tennis - that played a key role in catapulting the light and flexible attire into mainstream fashion.
While tennis ‘whites’ were popular to wear in the sport throughout the early 1900s, one of the game’s most successful players at the time, Jean René Lacoste, sought to improve the practicality of the design to aid performance.
Nicknamed ‘le Crocodile’ because of his agility and shot power, Lacoste introduced his own short-sleeved, three-button shirt, which was created using pique cotton that helped to improve on-court movement.
This would lay out the blueprint for the modern polo shirt, and it quickly became a tennis staple that replaced the traditional button-down shirt and tie look throughout the sport.
Lacoste went on to use his crocodile nickname as the logo of his own clothing brand as its success grew, and the rest is history.
Tennis Shoes
The rise of comfortable tennis pumps
Tennis was also the sport that birthed the soft-soled pumps that became the sneakers we know and love today.
Even the likes of Henry VIII owned his own early incarnation of the plimsolls worn to play tennis, but it wasn’t until 1892 that the US Rubber Company designed and produced the first comfortable rubber tennis shoes known as Keds.
Other sports were quick to follow in the footsteps of tennis shoes.
Marquis Converse created its own Converse All-Stars to be worn on the basketball court, while Adi Dassler, the man who created Adidas, created a specialised shoe in 1924 to be worn on the racetrack.
By 1984, Nike opted to court the interest of an up-and-coming basketball star called Michael Jordan - and the release of Air Jordans went on to create one of the most revered fashion staples in history.
Find out more about tennis throughout the years on our tennis blog!
Sports Eyewear
Kim Kardashian shows off new sports eyewear
Some of the most fashionable sunglasses in the world come directly from sporting backgrounds.
The necessity of aerodynamic, protective and functional eyewear across different sports has contributed to the creation of some iconic frames, lenses and styles over the years.
Many designs have been adopted by some of the world’s biggest stars, and different sports have generated different stars in eyewear fashion.
Oakley, for instance, rose to prominence in creating polarised sunglasses to help protect wearers from UV rays and debris in sports like mountain biking, skiing and golf.
Because these outdoor sports require wearers to stay protected against the sun, different coloured tints were introduced in a move that kept wearers looking good and safe from damaging their sight.
The style quickly became popular in the world of fashion, with sporty designs becoming commonplace when out and about in social settings.
Oakley isn’t the only brand to excel in creating sports eyewear that became synonymous with fashion.
Nike’s sunglasses range, designed for runners, and sports goggles for basketball and football players has also struck a chord with the fashion world.
Baseball Caps
Jay-Z has helped to bring sportswear into pop culture
When the first-ever game of baseball as we know it today took place in 1846, the New York Knickerbockers arrived for their match against the New York Baseball Club wearing matching shirts, pantaloons and wide-brimmed hats made of thin, plaited wood strips.
Before long, the Knickerbockers switched to merino wool caps with a narrower front brim and six panels, creating a higher and more comfortable crown.
In 1901, the Detroit Tigers made the innovative move of adding an image of a tiger to their caps - inadvertently kickstarting one of the world’s most famous branded accessories.
Today, the baseball cap has become so popular in the world of fashion that they’re widely worn by fashion-conscious individuals in countries where baseball is rarely played.
Read more baseball trends and topics on our MLB blog
The Blazer
Stylish blazers aren’t just for formal occasions
Although the modern blazer is more commonly associated with formal wear today, it actually originated from sports coats in UK university towns like Oxford and Cambridge.
Often referred to as a ‘Norfolk Jacket’ in its formative years, the style was intended as a shooting jacket.
However, its single-breasted and innovative box pleats at the front and back meant that wearers could have better freedom of movement.
This made it easier to not only aim a rifle but also cast a fishing line, row or undertake plenty of other sporting activities with comfort.
Emergence of Athleisure
Bruce Lee: the original athleisure ambassador
Sportswear has had an interesting relationship with fashion, and in the 1920s the term actually referred to the comfortable and casual clothes women wore to view spectator sports.
In the years that followed, athleisure has taken centre stage in a variety of sports, as well as high fashion.
By the 1960s, manufacturers started using colour-coordinated cotton and nylon jersey tracksuits that would provide stretch and comfort to aid wearers in a number of activities.
Perhaps the greatest contributor to athleisure’s path into mainstream fashion was Bruce Lee, who utilised the classic stretchy tracksuit in a series of popular kung-fu movies that inspired a number of fans.
It’s now commonplace to see athleisure worn by both celebrities and the public alike to perform their daily tasks and routines, even if they don’t involve working up a sweat.
With sportswear innovations continuing to crop up as technology advances, we’re likely to see new fashion trends inspired by sports continue to grow.
What the next generation of athleisure wear will bring to the world of fashion may not yet be clear, but whatever it may be, the chances are that it will add even more comfort for its wearers!
What’s your favourite sportswear pick? Let us know in the comments!
