Where Sport Meets Fashion
By Sarah Stefanson May 24, 2010
Photo: David Beckham by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for Armani
The pairing of fashion and celebrity has been a long and fruitful partnership. Beauty and fashion brands promote their products by getting them on the faces and backs of stars and the celebrities up their exposure by dabbling in the fashion world. Photo shoots featuring movie stars and musicians are common in the pages of major fashion magazines and these celebrities are even appearing on runways. The most recent trend in the marriage between the fashion and entertainment industries is the use of world famous athletes as models and spokespeople. Appreciated for their talent, their fame and their perfectly chiseled bodies, sports stars are becoming the new darlings of the fashion world.
As one half of pop culture’s most fashionable couple, David Beckham has been admired for his looks and his style almost as much as his football prowess. It was a natural fit when Beckham teamed up with Adidas to design a shoe line and lifestyle menswear collection. Designing sports shoes and clothing makes sense for an athlete, but Beckham has also gotten his feet wet in other areas of the fashion world. He famously posed for a racy ad campaign for Emporio Armani’s underwear collection both with and without his famous wife. In early 2010, the couple teamed up with their children, Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz, to design a line of t-shirts for the charitable organization, Sport Relief, which will benefit disadvantaged people around the world.
Following in Becks’ footsteps is Cristiano Ronaldo, the latest buff soccer star dropping trou for Armani with the Spring/Summer 2010 Emporio Armani underwear collection. Also appearing in the ad campaign for the Armani Jean collection, Ronaldo has been praised by the man himself, Giorgio Armani, for his “perfect physique.” The fashion world first took note of Ronaldo when he appeared in a fashion spread in Vogue magazine in 2007 alongside Canadian model, Daria Werbowy.
Vogue, ever the authority on what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to fashion, has slowly started to accept the athlete-turned-model trend. In addition to Ronaldo’s spread, the magazine featured NBA star LeBron James on their April 2008 cover and French-Caribbean tennis player Gael Monfils appeared in a romantic photo shoot in the October 2009 issue. The new appreciation for athletes/models at the magazine may have something to do with Editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour, being a big fan of tennis star Roger Federer, who takes to the court in fashion forward outfits, some of his own design.
Never was there more hype about the association between sports and Vogue magazine than in 2008 when NHL star, Sean Avery took a summer intern position with the publication. Avery, who, according to his publicist is, “ridiculously obsessed with fashion,” took plenty of ribbing from his teammates and the press about the unpaid internship, which saw him fetching coffee and adjusting clothing racks.
Athletes from around the world are testing the fashion waters in a variety of ways. French footballer, Thierry Henry, designed a line of clothing for fashion giant Tommy Hilfiger and donated the proceeds to his charity, the One 4 All Foundation. Designer Joseph Abboud was named the official apparel partner of the NFL’s New York Giants, a first in both the fashion and sports industries. San Francisco 49er, Vernon Davis, followed Avery’s lead and took an internship with the label Organic by John Patrick.
Of course, there are plenty of female athletes that have followed their passion for fashion as well, including Maria Sharapova, the tennis star who has collaborated with shoe brand, Cole Haan, and modelled for the likes of Sports Illustrated. The world of tennis has also given us the fashion forward Williams sisters—Venus, who earned a fashion degree from The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, and Serena, who has her own clothing line.
This month’s fervour over Los Angeles Laker, Kobe Bryant’s unusual photo shoot in the Los Angeles Times cements the link between sports and fashion. Whether it’s an ad campaign or a summer internship, it seems that athletes can’t get enough of fashion and vice versa. Expect to see many more athletic superstars flaunting their style in the pages of the world’s leading fashion magazines if this trend continues.
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Submitted on May 24, 2010 in Celebrity Fashion.
Sarah is our Western Canadian correspondent. She recently left a long-standing position as editor and writer for TheSoko.com, DriverSense.com & LiveDress.com to focus on book and novel writing. Sarah continues contribute weekly articles to AskMen.ca and Models & Moguls. Sarah thinks she might have been a model if it weren’t for the blessing of Slavic hips and thighs.
Sarah Stefanson has contributed 64 articles to Models & Moguls.
