How Custom Athletic Apparel Became Fashionable?

Sports dominate the world today. You can find it in everything from entertainment to fashion. Thus, making it one of the most profitable industries to work in. It attracts a wide range of characters, personalities, and appearances. This implies that custom athletic apparel can be anything you want it to be.

How did sportswear become not only the norm but also the high fashion option for almost everyone? It's a long and winding story about social change, urban adaptation, random cultural moments, and synthetic science.

In this blog, we will reflect briefly on the history of custom athletic apparel. So that, we can better understand why it is the way it is today and potential future trends.

Tennis Fashion: From the Court to the Runway to the Streets

Jane Régny and Suzanne Lenglen were two early sportswear courtiers who designed and sold activewear for women in the early twentieth century. Tennis wear, often associated with country clubs and aristocrats, has been consistently referenced in prep, resort, and collegiate styles since the 1920s. These associations have aided brands like Fred Perry in achieving cult status. Despite its athletic roots, Fred Perry has become a 100% street fashion brand. And emerged with the prep styles of the British Mod subculture.

Tracksuits Became an Expression of Fashion

Custom athletic apparel was arguably America's contribution to fashion. Sportswear was the term used to describe the comfortable and casual clothes that people wore to watch spectator sports in the 1920s.

Stretch fabrics enabled the development of nylon athletic shorts, zip-up windbreakers, and anoraks. In the 1960s, producers began producing color-coordinated cotton and nylon jersey tracksuits. They produced them in the iconic blue, red, and grey colors that are now part of classic sportswear.

The credit for popularizing the classic stretchy tracksuit goes to Bruce Lee. In the mid-1970s, he brought classic, stretch, and flexible tracksuits into mainstream fashion. So, it became fashionable to wear athletic tracksuits for almost every activity. These tracksuits comprised polyester, cotton, terrycloth, and velour.

Ski Suits Make the Transition from Ski Wear to One-Piece

Skiing became popular among the upper crust in the 1920s. As a result, this fashionable sport necessitated its attire. Many European fashion houses courted wealthy and fashionable skiers who would dress in all manner of fashionable skiing attire on the slope.

The Arrival of Stretchable Fabric

However, the real fashion breakthrough came after that. Designers began using nylon and other synthetic stretchable fabrics in custom athletic apparel during WWII. As a result, producers could design active wear with unprecedented flexibility and comfort. They incorporated zip pockets, stirrup straps, and concealed hoods into ski wear and used military clothing designs. When it comes to ski suits, these are still popular.

Origin of Vivid Colors into Ski Wear

Later, in the 1980s, stirrup pants and brightly colored clothing made their way into ski wear. And many of these trendy items have remained ever since. While most of us have come to accept the brightly colored, one-piece ski suits. Jackets from the 1980s are also popular. This is because they have a cult-like feel to them. As a result, you can incorporate ski wear into your everyday fashion wardrobe.

Sneaker Fashion

The Stan Smith tennis shoes, designed by Adidas in the 1970s, were one of the most iconic shoes. The shoes got their name from the top tennis players of the time. Initially, they used them for sporting purposes. Marc Jacobs and other fashion figures later adopted these shoes.

This is how they got into the fashion industry. These same sneakers are now available in the market with much more fashion fanfare. Similar to what they did when they first launched in 2014. They have now achieved the status of a coveted cult shoe.

Another Adidas shoe made headlines when Run-DMC was photographed wearing it. They were the ones who sparked a change in urban fashion. This was the first time they wore streetwear on stage. Their style elevated typical hip-hop fashion to a powerful level that continues to this day.

Yoga Pants Flee the Studio

When it comes to yoga pants hitting the fashion, we're just as perplexed as you are. How did a piece of custom athletic apparel that was purely functional and athletic become a part of fashion? According to the theory, these pants were so comfortable that once people put them on, they didn't want to take them off. Yogis would wear them in public, and when others saw them, they would follow.

The amazing thing is that the ancestor of yoga pants was never seen on the streets of fashion. We are, of course, referring to the unitard. The unitard is the most unfashionable item from the 1970s. It is argued that when the unitard was removed, yoga went from weird to fashionable. Due to the comfort of yoga pants, they became popular on the streets, just like other fashion sportswear.

Future of Sports Apparel: Quality and Messaging

Sports is a thrilling industry to work in because it honors the past, present, and future.

So, the fashion industry's demand for custom athletic apparel is consistent. Even it's booming in emerging markets where people have more disposable income and free time. However, the amount of low-quality and counterfeit products is limiting the overall growth of the sports apparel industry.

So, if you want to be a part of the game, you must go all in. Acknowledge the times we live in, and prioritize quality. The history of sportswear in fashion demonstrates that brand success is achieved by developing a product that solves a problem for a specific group of people and then adapting that product for other groups of interested people.

Start small and work your way up to the level you require—just like in sports. If you stick to your guns, your fans will stick with you.