From courts to streets to high fashion

This summer, everyone wants to look good, and for those of us who haven’t been too active of late, we’ve been trying desperately not to look too bad out there when we pick up on old sports. People of my generation, for example, still remember when basketball shorts hugged your privates and had belt buckles on them, and swimming meant putting on a pair of tiny trunks, not baggy shorts or space-age-tech bodysuits.

In the last decade, though, sports fashion has leapt from the street to the workplace, and now, to the runways. Expensive European magazines showcase "sports couture", and it seems everyone wants to plaster the word "sports" or "sportswear" on anything from glamorized t-shirts to overcoats made with breakthrough synthetic materials.

People in jogging pants (we seem to be one of the few countries that still call them that) jog through the streets of Manila, Munich, New York and Beijing. Connection to sport dominates our lifestyle and how we want to look, as if it magically makes us feel better or, by osmosis, makes us fit. Nowadays, German sports apparel manufacturers such as Adidas, Puma, Chiemsee and Bogner are setting international fashion standards, and the world’s most famous designers either create their own lines and brands, or attach their names to sportswear brands with long histories of excellence. Stella McCartney and Yohji Yamamoto lend their names to lines for adidas, the latter with his high-end Y-3 shoes.

Adolf "Adi" Dassler made his first shoes using the few natural materials available after World War I in his tiny workshop in Herzogenaurach. Track athletes then wore special shoes from Dassler for the first time at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. In 1931, Dassler made his first tennis shoe. In 1948, he registered his company, adidas, two years after making canvas and rubber sneakers from American fuel tanks used in World War II. Still, it took a few more decades before sports fashion exploded worldwide.

In the United Kingdom, "sportswear" usually means apparel that is used for exercise. In the US, though, it also encompasses any comfortable, practical leisure clothing, a definition also used in German-speaking countries and throughout Europe. Sports apparel or "active wear" was adapted to become fashionable "sportswear" and in turn became the thing to wear on the street - "streetstyle", in other words. But although more than 80% of sports shoes today satisfy the heavy demands placed on them by professional athletes, the vast majority of them are worn by people who never engage in that particular sport. And as we’ve seen here in the Philippines, sportswear — and shoes, in particular - cost so much, teens would rather wear them to party.

In the 1980’s, the aerobics trend made the ubiquitous "leggings" a staple. Soon, they started crossing over from the gym to other areas of our lives, and served as a launchpad of sorts for sports to become a major expression of fashion. At the same end of the spectrum, gangs in the US were known for the trademark brands and models of expensive basketball shoes their members wore, often getting them even before they came out in stores.

Today, everything from snowboarders’ baggy pants to bikers’ leather jackets, sailors’ windbreakers, soccer shorts or baseball caps are deciding style on the street. Its biggest crossover, however, has been in the music scene, which breaks out from the streets where what’s in is determined in so many aspects of global culture. Bands dictate what labels, jackets or shoes are the ones young people want to wear. Run DMC’s 1985 hit My Adidas took the world of hip-hop by storm, transforming overnight the the brand into the youth scene’s must-have item. Sportswear became a status symbol, and sportswear in general became a means to belong. The appareal benefited from research in high-tech materials that were originally developed and tested for professional athletes but today are equally appreciated in everyday clothing - windproof materials, sweat-absorbing membranes and fast-drying fibers.

Several football World Cups and Olympic Games brought financial victory to adidas, which was the official supplier of apparel to 4,000 athletes at the 2004 Games in Athens. When Yohji Yamamoto was commissioned by the company to create designs for them, he limited his use of decorative elements to the three white stripes. This unique collaboration spawned a whole new line of branded apparel. Since 2003 Yamamoto has been designing higher-priced and more sophisticated collections in cooperation with adidas. This "sports couture" collection includes generously cut ankle-length skirts, hooded tops featuring the three white stripes and running shoes sporting the Y-3 logo. Even rapper Missy Elliott has her own line. In November of 2005, adidas also launched Ali by adidas, a fashion collection in collaboration with three-time heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

And everyone who makes anything to wear wants in on sports fashion. Makers of high fashion such as Escada and Hugo Boss and designer labels like Strenesse Gabriele Strehle have also maintained their own sportswear lines: Escada Sport, Boss Green, and Strenesse blue. Complementing the range of everyday casual clothing, sporty leisure and comfortable indoor wear that corresponds to the "cocooning" and "homing" trends, they cater to the needs of the more sophisticated wearer; in other words, those with money to burn, who’d rather sweat in something that costs more.

From the streets to the fashion capitals of the world, sports always makes a positive statement.