Olga Ivanitchenko Stecler-Student Fall 2016 Class of Travis Timmons
1
A HISTORY OF SPORTSWEAR
When I was asked to write an essay to sports related topic, I realized, that the most interesting for
me , will be the history related one. I asked myself a few questions and stopped on “Sportswear
development”. It was interesting for me, how from almost naked wear in ancient Greek sports we
come to the well-developed closing and shoes? What made it to happen? Who was the first to think
about and create a sportswear? How faction designers and sportswear ones are related to each
other? How athletes are involved in this process? What materials are used in todays sportswear?
What are the main brands and what are their histories? In this essay I will try briefly to answer all
these questions. During my life I remember myself in a crazy swimsuit ,funny figure skating
costume and ugly sportswear for other sports ,when I look on todays athletes, I am so happy for
them, as their clothing is so bright and comfortable. If during 50 years the sportswear so changed,
what changes it made during centuries?!
1. History of a sports Clothing.
Ancient people were not wearing special clothing and shoes for sports, their wear was very simple
in design, materials were natural , regular wool or linen (writer873). Sure the climate of Greece
and Rome is very warm, what made an input on clothing .When the Earth population start to
move in another regions, they were need to create a warm wear, to protect their bodies from cold.
There are believes, that the history of sports is coming from ancient Greece, but when we start our
learning about a history of the modern sports, the most of them started their history just in 19th
Century and later. Here are some facts from Marry Belts investigation (Bellis): “In 1887, George
Hancock, a reporter for Chicago Board of Trade, invented softball”. ”Swimming pools did not
became popular until the middle of the 19th century.”. “Tennis originated from a 12th century
French game called paume ” officially it happened in 1873..” William Morgan invented volleyball
in 1895”…. About the time, when modern Olympic Games began in 1896 we can expect a starting
point of development of a sportswear.
One of the first designers specialize in this was the British John Redfern, who in the 1870s began
designing tailored garments for women who played tennis. Redfern’s clothes, although intended
for specific sporting pursuits, were adopted as everyday wear by his clients.
(wiki/Sportswear_(fashion)). Great Britain is a Motherland of a lot of sports clothing as the sport
was very popular in this county. Industry needed a clothing for horse riders, cricket and soccer
players, who start to organize a sport clubs and were searching for special clothing.
In Russia the middle ages sports clothing included a wide pants and a wide tops, so it will be easy
to fight, as it was the main sport for competition there.
Starting with Soviet period in 1917, sports and sportswear development starts very intensively,
but as there was no money around, it was very cheap and simple. (wear)
What is interesting, that not all famous clothing designers all over the world were involved in
sports clothing development ,an example are Coco Chanel and Jean Patou.
The sportswear tradition in America includes male manufacturers and a few early pioneers such
as Sydney Wragge , McCardell, Cashin, Hawes, Wilkins, Leser, and Maxwell and later John
Weitz, become the driving force of fashion’s fresh invention resides with the women who
Olga Ivanitchenko Stecler-Student Fall 2016 Class of Travis Timmons
answered women’s needs in sports and everyday life. (Martin).1930s were the years of a birth of
American sportswear business. This were the years when sport come into life of ordinal people.
It was thought in those time that to be an athlete is to have very good manners .
The strong influence of European, especially French design can be found in first American
sportswear , but moving further it become an independent from Europe business. Fashion in
America was logical and answerable to the will of the women who wore it. Implicitly or explicitly,”
American fashion addressed a democracy, whereas traditional Paris-based fashion was
authoritarian and imposed on women, willing or not.” (Martin)
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. (da Cruz) Italy from a beginning of 20th
Century 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. (Steele)] Designers
such as Emilio Pucci and Simonetta Visconti grasped that there was a market for clothing that
combined sophistication and comfort. The quality of Italian sportswear was recognized early on
by Robert Goldworm, an American sportswear designer who in 1947 joined his New York-based
in family company, which was in clothing production since 1927. . (Heinemann Perso pp 110-
112)Through his second company base in Milan, Goldworm became the first American knitwear
designer to take advantage of Italian quality and bring it to the New York market The most
