What is fashion sport and Why Do We Use Them?

Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls 1800 to 1960 will be the first exhibition to explore the evolution of women’s sporting attire in Western fashion over this 160-year period. Beginning with the turn of the nineteenth century, when women ventured outside the domestic sphere to partake in outdoor activities, and concluding with the mid-twentieth century, when the basic forms of women’s sportswear we know today were codified, this exhibition will trace the accessories and garments that defined women’s participation in the sporting world as athletes and spectators. Examining the competing priorities of fashion, function, and propriety, Sporting Fashion will feature approximately 65 fully accessorized ensembles and a selection of sport-related accessories and ephemera, all drawn from the exceptional collections of the FIDM Museum. This exhibition represents an unprecedented opportunity for a significant portion of the FIDM Museum’s extensive holdings, which are marked by their outstanding design merit, to be seen outside of Los Angeles.

The subtitle Outdoor Girls is inspired by the printed script on a circa 1946 wool scarf, which depicts women engaged in thirteen different sports, including golf, horseback riding, ice skating, and tennis. This exhibition will include ensembles worn for these and over forty other outdoor activities over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, each carefully assembled based upon extensive primary source research. The exhibition’s broad definition of sport will include any activity that required physical exertion—from traveling to calisthenics, and motorcycling to promenading. The exhibition will feature accessories from long-established sportswear brands, such as Keds, Pendleton, and Spalding, and garments by key designers, such as Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Claire McCardell, and Jean Patou.

Organized into eight themes defined by sport location, Sporting Fashion will explore how clothing met the needs of new pursuits for women, while at the same time it could preserve their socially approved, restricted mobility. Garments for swimming, surfing, and tanning will illustrate how innovative designers and manufacturers responded to the increasing acceptance of exposed skin at beaches and pools; winter sports ensembles will show how apparel for pastimes such as skiing and ice-skating protected female participants from the elements; and ensembles for cycling, motoring, and flying—often adapted from men’s athletic gear—will reveal how women navigated open roads and skies. To complement the artifacts on view, period films, a timeline of key events, and short biographies of important sportswomen will further situate sporting fashion in the broader context of women’s social history.

Fashion trend featuring clothing designed for athletic activities

Athleisurewear windbreaker and leggings

Athleisure is a hybrid[1] style of athletic clothing typically worn as everyday wear. The word is a neo-logism combining the words 'athletic' and 'leisure'. Athleisure outfits can include yoga pants, tights, sneakers, leggings and shorts[2] that look like athletic wear, characterized as "fashionable, dressed-up sweats and exercise clothing".[3] Since the 2010s, it has become more common, especially in North America, to wear gym clothes outside the gym, whether the wearer is exercising or not.

Athleisure can be considered a fashion industry movement, enabled by improved textile materials which allow sportswear to be more versatile, comfortable, and fashionable.[4] Since about 2015, it is also a retail clothing category.[5]

Background

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In the 1930s, the Champion sportswear company began producing hoodies for laborers working in freezing temperatures. In 1958, DuPont invented spandex, a crucial athleisure component. Adidas popularized athletic fashion by introducing sport-to-street tracksuits in 1963. By the 1970s, athletic fashion was ubiquitous in street culture and grew in popularity in the 1980s from hip hop music videos.[6]

By some accounts, the athleisure trend in the 21st century grew out of women wearing yoga pants, and the convenience of wearing clothes for multiple occasions without having to change. Its popularity may have stemmed from its ability to fill a gap in the market, when athletic apparel was once merely functional rather than stylish.[7] Another account suggests that the cyclical nature of blue jean sales has allowed athleisure apparel to supplant denim as casual wear.[8][9][10] Sportswear that had been worn exclusively in gyms is now being worn elsewhere by young adults and fitness-conscious consumers and has been accompanied by a relaxation in dress codes. The styles, colors, and fabrics of athleisure suggest a broader emphasis on fashion as opposed to functionality.[11] Innovations in textiles have brought improvements in functionality, such that garments and footwear have become more breathable, lightweight, and waterproof. The new garments are performance enhancing and allow wearers to carry out everyday activities easily.[12]

Evolution in the 2020s

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By 2020, a so-called "next-gen athleisure" category had emerged, owing to increasing acceptance in the workplace and advances in fabric and production technology, for instance yoga pants that double as acceptable office pants.[1] The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a continued increase in the popularity of athleisure wear. Some fashion brands that had previously made streetwear or suits pivoted to items like hoodies and jogging trousers, since many people were quarantined at home and wanted comfortable clothing that would still look stylish for virtual meetings.[13][14]

Joggers being sold as fancy pants, alongside plaid pajama pants, at a Uniqlo store in Hong Kong in 2021. Athleisure clothing frequently uses accents of brightly-colored fabric against a dark background, as shown here with dark yoga pants.

Market size and trends

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Reports in USA Today and The Wall Street Journal in 2015 described the athleisure market as growing, displacing typical workwear styles, and cutting in to sales of jeans, with a market size in 2014 of US$35 billion, representing an 8% increase from the previous year.[5][15][16] According to one estimate, the athleisure market, including footwear, was US$270 billion in 2016, and was estimated to grow 30% in the United States and Asia by the year 2020.[17] The global market as of 2018, assessed by Allied Market Research, was noted as US$155 billion.[1] In Canada as of 2019, "active" clothing made up about 25 per cent of the apparel that Canadians were buying, but in 2021 that number grew to more than one-third, and sales were growing twice as fast as other forms of clothing.[14] A report by Market Research Future anticipates the market to surpass US$842 billion by 2028.[18]

In spite of this, there is an arising issue regarding market saturation as traditional luxury and mass merchant brands tap into this trend.[10] The athleisure market for casual athletic clothing has become increasingly crowded with big-box retailers such as Walmart and Target, as well as fast fashion brands joining the fray, often at cheaper prices. An analyst estimated that the athleisure market was not slowing down, with much competition and pressure on various retail outlets including sporting goods stores.[15]

Impacts

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Social

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A woman wearing sports bra and boyshorts, which were conventionally women's sportswear, but are now also worn as casual or athleisure by women in the US.

Global shifts toward a rise in health and fitness trends have led to growing interest and participation in sports among the public. Many have actively joined clubs and competitions in order to fully adopt the characteristics of this lifestyle. Consequently, sportswear brands can utilize this opportunity to improve and introduce better quality apparel, footwear, and gear. Presenting their devotion toward a lifestyle, thus allows brands to garner customer loyalty.[19]

Athleisure has been promoted by celebrities such as Beyoncé and Rihanna.[20] It has been criticized because of the way it displays the feminine form. In a 2019 article in the New York Times which focused specifically on leggings, the question was asked, "When did leggings make the leap from garment to cultural lightning rod?" In a letter to the editor of The Observer, school newspaper at the University of Notre Dame, reported the Times, a woman wrote, "it was for their own as well as the greater good [for women not to wear leggings] in part because leggings made it hard for men to control themselves."[21]

Materials and technology

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New fibers enable greater odor reduction, sweat-wicking, and stretchability to conform to the body's shape.[20][22] Some athleisure designs allow certain segments more breathability while other parts can have greater tension or durability.[23] A type of athleisure sometimes called "technical wear" focuses on clothes that are more suitable for wearing to the office while being comfortable.[20]

Environmental

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There have been concerns that materials used in athleisure may have negative consequences for the environment; these chemicals include dyes and solvents and polyfluorinated chemicals and petroleum which are used to make athleisure resistant to water and grease and stains.[24]

See also

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References

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