Fashion Wants In on Sport But What’s the Buy-In?
Courtesy of Literary Sport
Fashion Wants In on Sport But What’s the Buy-In?
with Jackie McKeown, Lucy Delacherois Days, Maisie Skidmore and Roya Shariat
By HURS Team
The relationship between fashion and sport isn’t new—but it is evolving. For decades, fashion has borrowed from sport’s visual language without fully engaging with its meaning. What we’re seeing now is less about inspiration and more about investment. Athletes—particularly women—are becoming fashion’s latest muses, faces of campaigns, front-row fixtures. On the surface, it signals progress. But scratch deeper, and the questions pile up. What does fashion actually see when it looks at sport? And what does it choose to ignore?
Women’s sport is not just having a moment; it’s becoming a major economic and cultural force. In 2023, the Women’s World Cup drew over 2 billion viewers globally. Sponsorships for women’s sports are projected to exceed $1.3 billion in 2024. Fashion is starting to follow. Gucci partnered with England footballer Leah Williamson. Martine Rose reimagined Nike kits for both the men’s and women’s England teams. Skims is one of the WNBA’s official partners. These collaborations suggest a shift toward athletic legitimacy—but legitimacy isn’t the same as equity.
Sport is a system built on discipline, repetition, risk. It’s a language of the body, but also of class, race, geography, and gender. Fashion, by contrast, often trades in surface—elevating aesthetic over infrastructure. That tension becomes most visible when the industry courts women’s sport. There’s a difference between visibility and investment. Between celebration and support. Between using the athlete as a symbol, and engaging with the systems that built her.
Too often, brands approach sport as moodboard, not movement. Athleticism is styled, edited, controlled—offered as an aesthetic rather than a lived culture. But if this moment is to mean more, the industry must reckon with what it doesn’t know. That community sport is often shaped by absence—of funding, of coverage, of care. That women athletes have long been building legacies without the fanfare. That the real cultural capital lies not just in stadiums, but in school gyms, community centres, and local leagues.
A true partnership between fashion and sport would start with humility. It would value process over polish. It would ask who’s already doing the work—and how to support them. It would stop treating women athletes as trend cycles and start listening to them as strategists, storytellers, and cultural leaders.
Because if fashion wants to be in sport’s orbit, it has to learn to play by its rules—and sometimes, change its own.
JACKIE MCKEOWN
Jackie McKeown is a Toronto-based creative director, design director, and stylist. She is the co-founder of Garden Grouppe Ltd., a multidisciplinary creative studio, and the creative and design director of Literary Sport. Known for her directional eye and conceptual clarity, McKeown builds brand worlds that are visually distinct and culturally grounded. Her background in fashion and editorial styling informs a practice that moves fluidly across disciplines, with a focus on work that resonates both visually and emotionally.
LUCY DELACHEROIS DAY
Lucy Delacherois Day, is the Senior Director of Performance All Day at On. Delacherois Day built her career at fashion's top publications, from developing Vogue's 360° media brand to overseeing Garage Magazine's art-fashion intersection. As Global Managing Director of i-D Magazine, she drove double-digit growth across APAC markets. In 2023, she transitioned from media to On's product strategy team, where she's crafting the narrative for their performance lifestyle collection. Through collaborations with FKA twigs and Post Archive Faction, Delacherois Day is positioning On at the convergence of sport, style, and celebrity—using her trend forecasting expertise to bridge athletic performance with cultural relevance.
MAISIE SKIDMORE
Maisie Skidmore is a writer and editorial director whose work explores fashion, art and design, and their intersection in contemporary culture. She writes and edits articles and essays, and she is the author of Look Good, Feel Good, Play Good: Nike Apparel, a review of women's sportswear, which was published by Phaidon in 2024. Skidmore has recently joined Phaidon as Commissioning Editor. She lives and works in south east London.
ROYA SHARIAT
Roya Shariat is a London-based strategist and writer who works at the intersection of consumer brands, cultural relevance, and impact. Until recently, she was the Director of Social Impact and Communications Glossier, where she took the brand's multi-year partnership with the WNBA to new heights. Shariat also writes a newsletter on culture and joy called Consumed.
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THE AESTHETIC VS PERFORMANCE NARRATIVE
THE UNTAPPED OPPORTUNITY
