One of the biggest sections of the art world is fashion. Fashion is massive and still growing, and people love to use fashion to express who they are, the same way artists use their skills to show their true selves and put themselves out there. Sports and fashion go so well together because they are both so massive and, in some ways, similar.
Clothing in Sports
When you look at sports that have distinctive styles, you think of the big ones like football and Basketball, as the clothing is a lot more outlandish compared to other big sports. A sport like horse racing uses clothing choices for very specific reasons; whether it is for safety or for the viewers, they have specific reasons for each item.
One of the reasons a horse and its jockey will wear the color pink, for example, is because when the commentators and the punters are watching the horses, they would not be able to tell which horse is which without the colors. The colors of the horses and the jockeys are important for bettors so they can see which horse they put on by the jockey’s silk color. When the bets are put up on betting websites, like Boylesports, for example, the event organizer or stables even would have told Boylesports the color for the ease of the people betting.
Football
Football is the biggest sport in the world and the colour of the shirts of teams can be iconic. This all started in 1840 in England, in the College of Winchester when the games were the “commoners in red” and the “college boys in blue”. Another reason is similar to horse racing, it is the distinction between the players and the teams. The officials, spectators and players need to be able to tell the difference between everyone.
Football shirts have started to be a part of fashion culture as players and clubs are starting to be involved in modeling and getting fashion deals. One club that springs to mind is Paris Saint-Germain, which signed a deal with the fashion brand Jordan to create their kits. When this happened, you started to see more celebrities wear the kits as fashion items, and this helped PSG become more of an international brand and bring more money into the club.
PSG was not the only club to do this, smaller Italian side Venezia started to make kits that were made for models, they then became very popular and gave them a lot of income even though they were relegated to Serie B. Venezia’s kits did so well that certain fashion shops sold the kits in them and models were seen sporting the kit and bringing more attention to the club.
Basketball
Basketball is probably known as the most fashionable sport. American culture and fashion culture have been surrounded by basketball with the biggest shoe brand in the world being created for/by a basketball player, this being Michael Jordan.
This became the base for a lot of professional athletes to move into fashion, with football players like Jack Grealish recently signing a deal with Gucci and this would not be possible without Jordan doing this in the 90s.
Some of the most famous basketball players put themselves out there with their fashion a lot earlier than football players. Players like Dennis Rodman have been expressing themselves with fashion for such a long time that he became a fashion icon.
When you look at fashion, and the way players and teams dress, it has changed as fashion has grown. Sports and fashion are both massive for people around the world, and they overlap as players and teams sign deals with big brands. An example is Manchester City and Dsquared2, City wears Dsquared2 clothing when they arrive at games, which brings even more money into City and exposure for Dsquared, so both parties win.