Sporting Fashion

This book offers a stunning visual record of the evolution of women’s sporting attire in Western fashion over nearly two centuries. With selections from Keds, Pendleton, and Spalding and garments by Coco Chanel, Claire McCardell, and Jean Patou, among many others, it features familiar names in the development of sport, industry, and dress, as well as significant rediscoveries. Standing at the intersection of the history of fashion and feminism, Sporting Fashion highlights the extraordinary impact of new technologies and evolving social mores on women’s clothing for sport. It explores how the basic forms of women’s sportswear we know today—from swimsuits to sneakers— were developed and codified during a time when women were achieving more freedom. Full colour illustrations of sport and leisure ensembles are included, along with magazine spreads and archival images. In thematic sections, the authors approach the range of ways women entered into the sporting world— from traveling to calisthenics, golfing to tennis, motorcycling to promenading. The book looks at examples of clothing that allowed women to walk freely and compete in sports previously restricted to men. It explores how designers both reacted to and encouraged the growing acceptance of exposed skin at public beaches and pools—and how cold weather fashion made its way onto the slopes and the ice. Never before have the garments and accessories that defined women’s roles as both spectators and athletes been presented on this scale and in such detail.