Sportswear: Between Fashion, Innovation and Sustainability

The general editors of Fashion Practice, Sandy Black and Marilyn Delong, would like to extend their sincere thanks to the guest co-editors of this special issue focused on a range of historical, social, technical and design perspectives in sportswear and functional textiles: Mette Bielefeldt Bruun, head of the Næstved Museum, Museum Southeast Denmark is an art historian specializing in design, and Michael A. Langkjær, of the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen is a historian specialized in fashion and costume history.

Sport is an important part of many people’s lives—as both recreation and entertainment. It is also a sizeable industry with political and economic ramifications in today’s world. Within the last half-century or so, sportswear has become a driving force for new trends in fashion and for textile innovation. This special issue of Fashion Practice was inspired by the “Spandex to Sportstech—Fashion and Innovation in Sportswear” conference, organized in 2011 by guest editor Mette Bielefeldt Bruun at the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen.

The stated purpose of Fashion Practice is to provide a site for multidisciplinary treatments of the practices of fashion. “Spandex to Sportstech” was designed as a cross-disciplinary forum for renewed consideration of functional, social, aesthetic and environmental issues connected with sportswear, and some of the papers presented here are rooted in original conference contributions. This journal issue is truly cross-disciplinary, beginning with fashion history, represented by Michael A. Langkjær with “Urban Fitness, Gendered Practices, and Fine Art: The Significance of Antonio Lopez’s Sporty Styling of Fashion” and moving on to the sportswear industry itself with its brands and markets, represented by Kristine Holm-Jensen with “Specialized in Sportswear: Transformations of the Generic Knitwear Industry in Post-War Denmark.” Several articles then consider fiber and textile technologies and their design applications. Jane McCann leads this group with her “Sportswear Design for the Active Ageing.” McCann is followed by Deborah A. Christel and Nicole H. O’Donnell with “Assessment of Women’s Plus-Size Swimwear for Industry Applications.” Alicia Potuck, Sarah Meyers, Ariana Levitt, Erik Beaudette, Hong Xiao, C. C. Chu, and Huiju Park complete the group with their “Development of Thermochromic Pigment Based Sportswear for Detection of Physical Exhaustion.” In “What’s the Problem? Odor-control and the Smell of Sweat in Sportswear,” Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Madeline Buck, Kirsi Laitala and Marit Kjeldsberg look at how fiber technologies connect with our social values associated with body odor and its suppression; in doing so, Klepp et al. also mention the issue of sustainability. A forthright appraisal of the problem of sustainability within the sportswear industry is given by an industry representative to Lena Erdnüß in “A Perspective on Sustainability Initiatives of a Swedish Outdoor Brand: An Interview with Lennart Ekberg from Haglöfs.” Finally, Lauren Downing Peters has contributed a review of the Museum of the City of New York’s 2013 exhibition: “Stephen Burrows: When Fashion Danced.”

All articles are situated within the second half of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first century. They deal with sportswear in a Western world heavily influenced by popular cults of youth and fitness, sparking health clubs and gyms, and indoor training and commercial fitness centers. A more recent development, also treated in these pages, is the inclusion of heretofore marginalized groups as active participants in sports. There is some overlapping here between our authors: the concerns of the “Active Agers” investigated by McCann resemble those of the female “Plus-Sizers” investigated by Christel and O’Donnell because in both cases the deciding factors are functionality and appearance. Other authors differ in their opinions of desirable priorities: Klepp et al. espouse the virtues of traditional natural fabrics such as wool, while both McCann and Potuck et al. subscribe to the qualities of performance-enhancing fabrics and textiles. For instance, McCann observes how “In the 1990s, radical snowboard clothing, that initially adopted relatively heavy traditional woolen materials, gradually adopted lighter–weight performance textiles.” Note the premium placed on “lightness.” This is in contrast to the valuation by Klepp et al. of what one might term “natural qualities of traditional textiles in the interest of sustainability.” We find it both refreshing and thought-provoking that there should be such contradictions as well as points of agreement within a single themed issue. Sportswear is being pulled in so many different directions simultaneously: fashionableness is opposed to functionality is opposed to sustainability. Can these diverging interests be reconciled?

One solution is the co-design approach or collaborative design process. Both McCann and Christel/O’Donnell show how consumers are now being directly involved in assessing design requirements and solutions. Such value-added product development involving end users at every stage is concomitant of the newfound respect shown by the sportswear industry for heretofore marginalized consumer groups. It is a necessary consequence of the democratization of high-performance sportswear, as well as of recognition of markets with a certain growth potential. All the same, we note that basic consumer interests mainly are with “color” and “price,” and not so much with information about sustainability, though Ekberg has in his interview with Erdnüß suggested that this could change.

Sportswear is subject to unique demands, problems and concerns. It is often employed in extreme physical and environmental performance conditions with requirements for covering and “assisting” the active body. Not only must it protect the body from extreme physical surroundings as is the case with extreme sports, but it must also protect the surroundings from the impurities connected with extreme bodily exertion, as noted by Klepp et al. Such concerns are among those addressed by new tailoring and textile technologies. There is also the need to satisfy the desire for a heightened aesthetics of sports and sports-recreational activity. Since the mid-twentieth century, sportswear has become everyday wear, whether off the rack or couture. Here, as noted by Langkjær, Holm-Jensen, McCann and Christel/O’Donnell, it is the styling and aesthetics that is in focus. Up to the beginning of the twentieth century sportswear looked almost identical to work clothes or everyday apparel. This changed, however, in the first decades of the twentieth century, when sportswear design detached itself from general fashion design due to its practical function and a tendency towards a uniform look clearly distinguishing one sport from another. Aesthetics gradually entered into the picture with colors and patterns used to distinguish players and teams seizing the attention of the spectators.

Introducing sportswear onto the catwalks of the leading fashion brands is nothing new. Chanel initiated this trend in the 1920s with the sailor pants. Tracksuits moved from the gymnastic arena on to high fashion as a result of the Wimbledon tennis final between Björn Borg and John McEnroe in 1980. Langkjær, writing about the American fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez, and Downing Peters, reviewing a retrospective exhibition of the fashion designer Stephen Burrows, both describe how sportswear made its way into the glamour of the 1970s’ disco era. Contemporary fashion designers use the symbolic nature of sports attire when making references to gangstas, 1970s Wimbledon heroes or wrestling attire; today we see trainers being worn by models for all the major fashion brands. A recent article in the UK Financial Times has noted that:

The sweatpant, and its athletic complement, the sweatshirt, have become staples on every catwalk in both the women’s and menswear shows, with designers at Chloé, Gucci and Bottega Veneta, Christopher Kane, Vetements, Ami and Astrid Anderson having all cleverly appropriated the tracksuit. (Thompson 2016, 5)

The androgynous nature of most sportswear apparel makes it a playground for fashion designers with a wish to break the traditional boundaries between male and female dress. The first trousers for women were seen on bicycling and mountaineering women, and tennis pullovers found their way from the tennis court into the wardrobes of 1920s fashionistas.

Different fashionable garment types now include: gymnastic outfits, casual sportswear, youth-oriented casual wear, fitness clothing and sportswear, performance sportswear, commercially available sportswear, technical sportswear garments, and exclusively manufactured tracksuits. Since 1979, the term “athleisure” has been coined for clothes that are designed to be “worn both for exercising and for doing (almost) everything else” (Merriam Webster 2015).

Michael A. Langkjær discusses the impact of noted fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez as an influencer of “sporty style” from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. On the basis of Antonio’s own production, Langkjær looks at how American sports-themed fine art (notably that of three 1930s “American Scene” artists and Andy Warhol), urban fitness fads from the late 1960s, hedonistic freedom in contemporary New York, and Antonio’s homoerotic cultivation of the athletic physique in conjunction with his spirited bi- and homosexuality contribute to explain the appeal of sports and sportswear for Antonio. Antonio had adapted all these elements so as to impart an appealing “edginess” to his depictions of sportswear. Langkjær concludes that it was this and not, as some have claimed, a sporty look he himself had adopted or launched in the early 1970s that constituted Antonio’s true significance as an influencer of “sporty” style.

The growing relation between fashion and sport has spanned the entire post-war era. It was in fact noted relatively early by the textile and clothing companies, as Kristine Holm-Jensen has pointed out in her analysis of the interrelationships between geographical clusters of clothes manufacturers specialized in sportswear in Denmark in the 1950s to 1970s. Challenges consisted in choice of color, cut and fabric as well as keeping up with the development of new fabrics and novel manufacturing methods, and new models of production and trade. This all took place within a radically changing market characterized by mass-communication, branding, changing economy, new technologies and generational shifts. Holm-Jensen’s Danish examples also point to outside factors like the Marshall Plan in the initial postwar period and outsourcing of labor in the 1980s as having influenced and challenged the domestic sportswear business.

The history of the Danish textile companies highlights the fact that the great expansion in the European sportswear industry in the 1950s and 1960s coincided with the development of new synthetic stretch materials ideal for sportswear. In 1938, Nylon, the first fully synthetic fiber, had been developed, and other synthetic fibers and their associated brands such as Orlon (acrylic), Lycra (polyurethane), Terylene (polyester), Tactel (nylon) and neoprene (synthetic rubber) were introduced from the 1950s to the 1980s. Lycra elastane fiber (spandex), originally invented in the late 1950s, was relaunched in the early 1980s to be used extensively by both fashion and sportswear designers for new waves of sporty activities such as aerobics, jazz ballet and bodybuilding. Today, synthetic technical textiles developed and used for sportswear are moisture wicking, prevent abrasion and can regulate temperature, as well as satisfy form requirements that are far more diverse and specialized, particularly since the last third of the twentieth century.

Several papers in this issue are concerned with sportswear suited for groups of people that would be benefited by having sportswear with some of the previously stated added functional features. The realization that sport not only is a recreational activity but is also an essential way to maintain good health has been widely recognized since the end of the nineteenth century. According to Christel and O’Donnell, one of the most popular sports in the US today is water aerobics, which has an acknowledged positive effect on both physical and mental health. Water aerobics is primarily a woman’s sport, and it is noted how, for plus-size women, the appearance of their swimwear is important for them to feel comfortable during water sports. Identical questions are raised by Jane McCann concerning sportswear for the active ageing. (There seems to be lacking a broader range of clothes which addresses the particular needs for comfort, pleasing aesthetics and functionality of both these demographic groups of sportswear consumers). Alicia Potuck et al. describe how their team of researchers have developed a method which deals with one of the greatest concerns of endurance athletes: how to determine when the body has reached its physical limits in terms of temperature sensing. The method employed is the encapsulation into the sportswear fabric of microcapsules with pigment that will change color when the body temperature gets too high. Thus, it becomes clear how extended innovation of fibers and fabrics is essential to sportswear today—right down to the molecular level!

Sustainability is intimately bound up with much of the innovative performance clothing described in this issue. However, the two things do not necessarily work in tandem. In some cases, as Klepp et al. point out, awareness of enhanced performance with respect to odor-suppression is a constructed—i.e. “false”—problematic. Ingun Klepp and her team of researchers at the Norwegian National Institute for Consumer Research have compared odor-control fabrics to traditional sportswear fabrics like wool, cotton and polyester. They are not only skeptical as to the actual benefits of using synthetic materials to combat body odor while exercising, but note, too, how new hybrid products involving moisture- and odor-management materials are being marketed with as yet uncertain consequences for the environment and personal health and safety. Odor-controlling textiles do not really contribute much towards reducing laundering frequency; for this reason, and the risk of polluting the groundwater because of the nano-silver encapsulated in some of these fabrics, they pose an environmental hazard. Klepp et al. suggest that the odor-control textiles are not as effective as more traditional materials like wool or cotton in combatting odor.

The article by Klepp et al. reminds us of the fact that the environmental debate is fundamental to the sportswear industry, not least because of the increasing numbers who are engaged in professional and recreational sports, and who expect not only more innovation, but a green production line as well. The textile industry has had a tarnished reputation as an extremely polluting enterprise for a long time—and not without good reason. One problem area is that of the production of cotton widely used in sportswear; it is both highly pesticide-intensive and hazardous in terms of after-treatment and finishing processes. Thus, public demands to solve environmental issues connected with textile production are increasingly preoccupying sportswear companies. Lennart Ekberg from the Swedish outdoor clothing company Haglöfs explains how his firm has worked extensively for many years with sustainability issues. Haglöfs has developed methods to recycle materials from their own production and they are also encouraging consumers to hand in their used garments for resale.

In conclusion: what novel insights have been gained by working with our contributors on this special issue of Fashion Practice?

First of all, one cannot get around the fact that it is the consumers who as a rule act as the driving force behind all these innovations in sportswear. They crave new features, gadgets and increased safety when practicing their sports, and are quite prepared to spend large sums on performance wear. Consequently the economic interests are huge and the drive towards innovation is impressive. In 2012 the growth of the sports apparel sector was “1.5 times faster than the general consumer spending” (Fuzz et al. 2014, xxiii). This factor needs to be taken into account in all considerations of the future of the sportswear sector.

Secondly, the fact that sportswear has become increasingly acceptable as everyday clothing has led to a problematic touched on by each and every article in this issue: sportswear is a very sensitive indicator of, and responder to, values. There are the values connected with functional attributes: Fit, mobility, comfort, protection; and there are those connected with the expressive attributes: roles, status and self-esteem. This is perhaps most clearly expressed by the papers dealing with marginalized groups. Here free reign is given to aspirational values fundamentally connected with active sports, such as individualism, relaxation, spontaneity, informality, freedom, autonomy and independence, functional practicality and fit-for-purpose, but also more “elitist” desires such as denoting stylishness and fashionableness, prosperity, dynamism, sophistication, smart image, expressing personal style, and, increasingly: sustainability.

Thirdly, Ingun Klepp et al. call our attention to issues (or should it be non-issues?) of aesthetic, hygienic, practical and ritual aspects of “dirt” and taboos connected with the “dirt” of human excretions caused by physical exertion. This has called to our minds a larger question of the intriguing relationship between sport, and “dirt,” but now understood as the voyeuristic and eroticized “semi-pornographic” aspect of the scantily clad athlete and sportsperson. Several of our contributors (Langkjær, McCann, Christel and O’Donnell, and Klepp et al.) have touched on user and onlooker concerns with the transgression of physical, symbolic or moral boundaries, and that the active sportsperson is, through the often minimal and intimately close-fitting qualities of his or her apparel—think of Nike’s “loosely hanging, short dress” at Wimbledon anno 2016 (Rothenberg 2016)—subject to the challenges of culturally related expectation as to “where the line is drawn.”

Finally, just as sportswear is expected to be convenient and easy, “leaving every muscle free,” it has also become instrumental in emancipating people, in some cases even going so far as being a gesture of defiance. This could be a gender-based defiance. However, it could also be a defiance rooted in a desire to be accepted as a physical entity wishing to partake in the psychological feel-good factor of engaging in active sports. This, along with the clean design lines and sensible practicality of sportswear, has made it part of the multifold trend commonly referred to as “modernity.”

Mette Bielefeldt Bruun
Head of Næstved Museum, Museum Southeast Denmark
[email protected] Michael A. Langkjær
External Associate Professor, Saxo Institute, History Section, University of Copenhagen
[email protected]