Sportswear has become an integral part of everyday dress. Using examples to illustrate your discussion, demonstrate how and why certain items of sportswear have become fashion items.

Sportswear can be defined as ‘clothes for sport or informal wear.’ The Oxford dictionary (1992). This definition is enough to suggest that sports clothing is no longer worn only during sport. Through the twentieth century a shift has occurred in which sports clothing is also worn as informal and fashion wear.

It probably was not until the nineteen seventies that sportswear had a major impact on the fashion world. During the first half of the twentieth century sports were dominated by men. Although women did participate, their role in society was mainly centred on the house and family. As a result sportswear for women was slow to catch on. Sport functioned mainly as a social and leisure activity, and unlike today was not valued as much for its health benefits. Lee-Potter (1984)

During the nineteen twenties a French designer called Jean Patou introduced the public with the concept of wearing less for sport. His designs incorporated removing sleeves and raising hemlines for sports dresses. This allowed more freedom of movement and was more appropriate for participating in sports. Patou’s modern designs had an impact on day wear as dress hemlines rose simultaneously. Prior to Patou’s garments designed specifically for sports there was little distinction between daywear and sportswear. Daywear was normally worn for sport.

Perhaps one of the earliest examples of sportswear becoming fashion wear was in the mid nineteen twenties when towelling ‘Oxford bag’s’, originally worn by Oxford undergraduates over their rowing shorts, were taken on by women as chic day and sportswear. As popularity of active sports such as: punch-bag, water-skiing, running, fencing, mountaineering and ice-skating increased in the nineteen thirties, sportswear developed to be even more practical and gradually started to blend in more with the fashion world. Lee-Potter (1984)

‘Half the fun in sports – or is it really all the fun? – lies in wearing just the smartest type of sports clothes’. American Vogue (1919)

At the end of the Second World War fabric restrictions were imposed on Britain. The impact this had on sportswear was large. Items such as sports dresses and stockings had become impossible to buy and so women adopted slacks for sportswear. Gradually this revised sportswear merged into everyday fashions, and during the forties and fifties slacks were seen as part of every day dress.

Fashion designers, such as Yves Saint ...