Sportswear (fashion)

Sportswear has been called America's main contribution to the history of fashion design. The term became popular in the 1920s to describe relaxed, casual wear typically worn for spectator sports. Since the 1930s the term is used to describe both day and evening fashions of varying degrees of formality that demonstrate this relaxed approach while remaining appropriate wear for many business or social occasions.

History of sportswear

Sportswear started out as a fashion industry term describing informal and interchangeable separates (i.e., blouses, shirts, skirts and shorts), but now describes clothing worn for a wide range of social events. It was developed to cater to the needs of the increasingly fast-paced lifestyle of American women. The early sportswear designers were associated with ready-to-wear manufacturers, rather than haute couture houses. The clothes were intended to be easy to care for, in easily washable fabrics, with accessible practical fastenings, to enable the modern, increasingly emancipated woman to dress herself without a maid's assistance. While most fashions in America in the early 20th century were directly copied from Paris, designer sportswear was the exception to this rule, being an American invention.

Pre-sportswear tailormade by John Redfern, illustrated by George Barbier in La Gazette du Bon Ton, April 1914.

Pre-1930

Sportswear originally described clothing made specifically for sport. One of the first couturiers to specialise in this was John Redfern who in the 1870s began designing tailored garments for increasingly active women who rode, played tennis, went yachting, and did archery. Redfern's clothes, although intended for specific sporting pursuits, were adopted as everyday wear by his clients, making him probably the first sportswear designer.

Some early 20th century Paris designers such as Gabrielle Chanel created haute couture designs that could be considered sportswear, though were not exclusively sportswear designers. Chanel promoted her own active, financially independent lifestyle through her relaxed jersey suits and uncluttered dresses. Other designers offering high end sportswear for resort wear included Jean Patou and Elsa Schiaparelli. In contrast to the flexibility of American sportswear, these expensive couture garments were prescribed to be worn in very specific circumstances.

1930–1970

The precursors of true sportswear emerged in New York before the Second World War. 1930s designers such as Clare Potter and Claire McCardell were among the first American designers to gain name recognition through their innovative clothing designs. Richard Martin described these designers as aiming to produce clothes demonstrating "problem-solving ingenuity and realistic lifestyle applications". McCardell has been called America's greatest sportswear designer. Her simple, practical clothes suited the relaxed American dress code, neither formal nor informal, that became established during the 1930s and 1940s. Sportswear uses elements of sporty informal or casual wear such as Clare Potter's innovative evening sweater and evening skirt draped like a sidesaddle riding habit.

Many of the first sportswear designers were women. A common argument was that female designers projected their personal values into this new style. In the 1930s and 40s, it was rare for clothing to be justified through its practicableness. It was traditionally thought that Paris fashion exemplified beauty, and therefore, sportswear required different criteria for assessment. The designer's personal life was therefore linked to their sportswear designs. Another selling point was sportswear's popularity with consumers, with department store representatives such as Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor using sales figures to back up their claims. Martin credits the 1930s and 40s sportswear designers with freeing American fashion from the need to copy Paris couture. Where Paris fashion was traditionally imposed onto the customer regardless of her wishes, American sportswear was democratic, widely available, and encouraged self-expression. The early sportswear designers proved that the creation of original ready-to-wear fashion could be a legitimate design art which responded stylishly to utiliarian requirements.

1970–2000

In the 1970s Geoffrey Beene, one of the first significant male sportswear designers, incorporated elements of menswear into his relaxed women's clothing. His fondness for layering garments and menswear elements are widely used by early 21st century industry designers. Marc Jacobs, who set up his own-name label in 1986, is renowned for layered informality in both day and luxurious evening wear. Late 20th century sportswear greats include the industry empires of Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and Tommy Hilfiger, each of whom created distinctive wardrobes for the American woman based upon stylish but wearable, comfortable and interchangeable multi-purpose clothes that combined practicability with luxuriousness. Most early 21st century sportswear design follows in the footsteps of these designers.

Alongside Jacobs, other notable 1980s and 1990s sportswear designers include Isaac Mizrahi, who presented his first collection in 1987. The original Isaac Mizrahi label closed in 1998, and Mizrahi subsequently designed a womenswear diffusion collection for Target from 2002 to 2008.

21st century sportswear

In 2000, the Lifestyle Monitor, an American trade magazine owned by Cotton Incorporated published that their surveys showed that an average of 64% of women interviewed preferred casual wear, including sportswear as distinct from active wear.

Notable New York sportswear designers of the 21st century include Zac Posen, Proenza Schouler, Mary Ping, Derek Lam, and Behnaz Sarafpour, who were all featured in the Sportswear section of the Victoria & Albert Museum's New York Fashion Now exhibition in 2007.

Other notable sportswear designers

Many 20th and 21st century designers work, or have worked in the sportswear tradition. Some of the most influential American sportswear designers not mentioned above include:

• Bonnie Cashin
• [[Perry Ellis
• Anne Fogarty

• Roy Halston Frowick
• Elizabeth Hawes
• Norma Kamali

• Vera Maxwell
• Isabel Toledo
• Diane Von Furstenburg

Sportswear outside the United States

In the late 1940s and 1950s non-American designers began to pay attention to sportswear, and attempted to produce collections following its principle. French couturiers such as Dior and Jacques Fath simplified their designs for ready-to-wear production, but at first only the Italian designers understood the sportswear principle. Designers such as Emilio Pucci and Simonetta Visconti grasped that there was a market for clothing that combined sophistication and comfort.

Italy had a reputation for fine fabrics and excellent workmanship, and the emergence of high quality Italian ready-to-wear that combined this luxury with the casual quality of American sportswear ensured the worldwide success of Italian fashion by the mid-1970s. This was a challenge to the American industry. John Fairchild, the outspoken publisher of Women's Wear Daily opined:

"The Italians were the first to make refined sportswear. [...] Americans don't mind spending if the sweater is by Krizia or Missoni."

In the 21st century Italian fashion remains a leading source for sportswear design outside the United States. Narciso Rodriguez, who is known for streamlined and pared down clothing, launched in Milan in 1997, but moved to New York in 2001. Miuccia Prada revived the fortunes of her family company Prada with her top-quality sportswear designs in the 1990s, and continues designing for the firm.

External links

• Sportswear Chic on the Victoria & Albert Museum website.

Further reading

• Martin, Richard (1998). American Ingenuity: Sportswear 1930s-1970s (exhibition catalogue). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. ISBN 0870998633.
• Martin, Richard (1985). All-American: A Sportswear Tradition (exhibition catalogue). Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. OCLC 23273653.