Letter of Rec #096: Sport is taking over
A theory on what a popular trend in fashion might mean for the broader culture. Plus: the rise of natural gemstones, lab grown diamonds and silver’s replacing gold.
I got some things from Literary Sport a few weeks ago and now totally get the hype. The shapes are trend forward, so you could wear them whenever, but they’re rendered in technical fabrics. That makes them the opposite of fussy — like where these shorts could feel oppressive in too heavy a weight no matter how fine the fabric, they are nimble enough to run in, cool enough to dance in all night at the clurb.
The tees, meanwhile, are extremely lightweight, almost negative weight in that they could make you feel one layer sub naked.
Style wise, too, the clothes are cool. The athleisure of yore never felt like this. Is Lit Sport even considered athleisure?
I think so, but where the stylistic priorities of Gen. 1 (Outdoor Voices) athleisure were fitness-first, in this new Gen., it’s cool-factor first.
Gen. 1 appealed to a busy millennial who specifically wanted to look like she was going to work out — who wanted to project the image of a busy woman, picking up her dry cleaning after Soul Cycle while answering work emails. Then she wanted to stop for a smoothie and never have to question whether she liked how she looked because her peers understood. Optically, it was the vibe.
Gen. 2, meanwhile, is for a different beast. This girl has so much swagger. She goes to the park and sits by the running path but she’s there to read her book. If she’s on the same block as a Soul Cycle; it’s only because she is en route to the bodega. She carries a flip phone, doesn’t have errands. Would rather smoke a cigarette than be caught dead with a smoothie. Put simply: She doesn’t want to look like she works out, even if she does. Which is to say nothing of whether she wants to look athletic — I think she does, but there is a difference.
There’s a cultural shift taking place at the intersection of fashion and sport. The fact that I’m even calling it sport as opposed to fitness or exercise is an indication of what I mean.
The solitary act of working out is transforming into desire for sport.
The two (exercise and sport) are different in that sport infers a sort of athleticism that isn’t necessary for exercise. You might need to exercise to participate in sport but the reverse is not true. And athleticism requires a sort of discipline and yearning for excellence — it’s not as lazy in that way, if that makes sense.
Like you can’t just slap on a pair of leggings and assume that you have actually tested your endurance. You have to go the literal mile to see how much further you can go. And the reward at the end is the energy, the clarity, the confidence you get from taking yourself to your absolute limit and then coming home.
Optics, I think, are on their way out.
Not to mention what sport represents: the healthiest kind of competition we know, first with yourself and then with others. It’s a wholesome, value-driven way to pursue personal growth that can’t be faked.
In high fashion, it started with tennis immediately post-Covid thanks to Miu Miu’s Spring 2022 collection and is evolving now to athletic swim c/o the aforementioned and Tory Burch (also an early champion of looking like you play tennis). I suspect the rise in shield-sunglasses — those Oakley style lenses that look a bit like ski (or squash) goggles play into this too.
Fashion has always been about aspiration — how we want to be perceived, how we want to feel.
I think we’ve placed a premium on feeling free over the last ten years, and have defined that freedom by optionality: by being able to opt in or out of, basically, anything we want. Which in the end has resulted in crippling overwhelm. I’m growing more convinced now with the rise of perceived athleticism in fashion that we’re hungry for a new kind of freedom defined by regiment, routine, fortitude — a personal pursuit of excellence where competition is with the self — and I am so here for it.
Meanwhile, 5 more great things —
Including details on a forthcoming and very good archive sale from Veronica de Piante, the best black pants for warmer weather, surf shorts to surf home about and some thoughts on new jewelry trends (informed by the range from Shannon Bond and Vertigo) that reflect the broader American market nosedive in motion…
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