Tuesday, July 21, 2009

OLYMPIC FASHION CONNECTS

The jubilation of Olympic triumphs and record-breaking feats has not merely sneaked into the pounding heartbeats of athletes and delegations but has also crept into the solid admiration of fans, supporters, enthusiasts and viewers globally. The Beijing Olympics last year is an event that everyone, in some way, has creatively and emotionally identified with. The global sporting extravaganza has drawn dramatic awareness in people not normally predisposed to national pride and levels of sporting interest. The fact is that Olympic fever has a habit of creeping up in some highlighted bends and one such niche is the fashion world.

The Beijing Olympics presented one great opportunity for visibility. The partnership between fashion and sports, with joint ventures between athletes and sports labels other than Nike, Adidas, Converse, Puma, Asics, Reebok, Speedo, Diadora, Umbro, Fila, Spandex, and New Balance is nothing novel. Fashion has the liberty of ingenuity, while sportswear has the familiarity of the best textile materials to make items functional. The end results are greater sports responsiveness and involvement, more imaginative expression and passion, quality training frills and supplies, leveled-up nationalism and glory in achievements, as well as brighter prospects for business, entrepreneurship and employment. It has become a large-scale mission for sports and fashion to collaborate to do something noble, notwithstanding the political drama hemming in the games.

Olympics 2008 demonstrated the span of these two worlds’ team-up in a number of guises, illustrating how far-reaching their mutual influence really is. From the sphere of high fashion to the conventional, sports and fashion have far more in common than you might think. The affiliation between contemporary fashion and global sportswear brands have been inspired by street style and have been working in closer collaboration in recent years. The link now between fashion and sport is indubitable, even the fashion heavyweights such as Ralph Lauren, Polo, Lacoste, and Fred Perry have records in sporting activities of diverse natures. If you consider fashion and sport are unlikely tandem, the Opening Ceremony at the Beijing Olympics doubles as the sportiest catwalk on earth. In appealing to a huge, new audience, a sports brand’s own label would reap the potential paybacks. The bond is even more noticeable in the street fashion scene with dominant sport's companies like Adidas and Nike pretty much owning the game with classic re-releases and limited editions.

There’s no excuse for poor designs and bad color combinations, they don’t make you perform at your best. Designing sportswear concedes to no compromise; it should keep pushing till it catches the best results – just like the Olympic athletes. What the athletes put on and bear may not be quite as important as how fast they will run, but, with an unprecedented worldwide audience of more than four billion viewers, that’s a enormous amount of brand exposure. Today, fashion needs sport and sport needs fashion. In an increasingly casual world, how many people wear couture? But the sportswear giants now confront the opposite challenge: over-distribution has threatened to make their garments too ubiquitous – thus it’s essential to inject style savoir-faire. When you’re working out, you don’t have to look like gibberish. Fashion preserves the true sports performance there and harmonizes its needs. This is the big reason behind Michael Phelps' million dollar endorsements following his sensational 8-gold-medal recprd-breaking feats.

Elegance in style or fashion sense has played a vital part in sportswear nowadays. Women athletes and delegates at the Beijing Olympics generally showed national pride in the modern or distinctive prints. American Olympic team looked sporty and classy, the image that they would like to project. Canada flashed modern sensuality. While it’s true that Summer Olympics are all about running harder, jumping higher and swimming faster, looking better is very important, too. The industry goal is making sportswear stylish as well as performance-friendly. Athleticism was not the only one on display at the Olympics. Outstanding personal, national and international qualities were carried on display from the bleachers to TV screens and newsprints around the world. Fashion in Sports kicks off the complexities in human undertakings into a more tangible, descriptive and gainful level.

Taking for granted that you're not head to toe in bespoke outfit and a pair of branded accessory, it’s an almost certainty that you're wearing some kind of sportswear, unless of course you're reading this article nude. Check out the slides below and start savoring the extent of athletic fashion at the recently concluded Summer Olympics:

Fashion And The Olympics
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: olympics fashion)






Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

No comments: