Winning pretty
FASHION | Women find a way to look good in athletic endeavors
Nicole DeBoom knew all about winning ugly. But in 2004, training for an Ironman competition, she caught her reflection in a store window and decided it was time to win pretty.
That night she sketched her first "fitness skirt" and had a prototype put together. DeBoom, who grew up in west suburban Downers Grove, won the Wisconsin Ironman competition in that skirt -- sweaty, but stylish and sassy in her hot-tamale-red skirt.
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"I finally feel like myself," she said at the time.
She launched SkirtSports in 2005, and in 2007 gross revenues topped $1.6 million. You can find her SkirtSports in more than 30 stores, including Fleet Feet Chicago and the Competitive Foot.
More and more women are making the move to convert to skirt, judging by the enormous selection out there. While women's sports are gaining in power, their activewear choices are more modest and feminine.
The classic golf skirt is now considered "high performance," with moisture management and sun protection. Yesterday's white pleated tennis skirts have given way to designs by Serena Williams, a woman given to metallic fabrics.
These days you'll find that swim skirts aren't just for mommies who have given up; they're a peekaboo part of today's sexiest bikinis.
Women are jogging in skirts, cycling in skirts, surfing in skirts and competing in "marathon dresses."
"They're functional, they're feminine, they're sporty and they're comfortable -- it just makes sense," says Danielle Crawford, a buyer for the East Bank Club's pro shop.
"We still see black pants every day for sure, but people are definitely taking more chances. It's different, and the women here like that," Crawford says. "And they've got the bodies to wear it."
The sport skirt isn't limited to the playing field, either, says Barbara Glass, a Chicago image and wardrobe consultant and fashion reporter for WMAQ-Channel 5. "We downsized our professional look at the office with business casual, and the trend is just continuing in our daily lives," she says. "Women are wearing the same clothes to the gym, the supermarket and to dinner."
Any way you look at it, sport skirts are a winner.
