Call of the Wild

Zimmermann goes wild with the fierce feline look.

Louis Vuitton’s interpretation was in full view during the brand’s Women’s Fall Winter 2024 Show.

In for the win. In recent years, the blending of fashion and sports has found new avenues to explore. LVMH became the premier partner of the Olympic Games as well as Formula 1, and Chanel became the title sponsor of the prestigious English Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. Brands looking for alternative ways to connect with consumers are waking up to sports’ commercial value and seeing the benefits of being part of the booming sports sponsorship market, merging sports fandom and fashion devotion.

Unexpected fashion partnerships include Mexican-American designer Willy Chavarria, who created 22 looks with Adidas Originals. Grounding the collection was Chavarria’s take on the iconic Adidas “Jabbar” sneaker, named after celebrated basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the first sneaker created with an athlete back in 1978. Other notable collaborations of the season include Cecilie Bahnsen x The North Face and The Attico x Nike.

The basic building blocks of athletic wear typically include sneakers, leotards, leggings, and track jackets. As the worlds of sports and fashion become ever more entwined, sportswear has become luxury daywear. At Dior, the leotard was a frequent style, highlighting the beauty of the female body. In a sea of black and white, a one- shoulder sparkling silver number with knee-high black boxing-style sneakers outperformed the rest. As models circled the runway, the audience watched as, behind a central glass partition, Italian competitive archer SAGG Napoli shot arrows at a target.

It was a powerful performance that was matched by the strong silhouettes. Giving off low-key luxury street vibes was the recurrence of the track jacket. The first look out the gate at the Off- White show was a cream ensemble with red striped piping, consisting of a tight- fitting zip-up jacket and a form-fitting skirt grazing the knee, with a second track jacket wrapped around the waist — not a sneaker in sight. Tying a jacket around your waist seems to be a recurring theme and perhaps the ultimate accessory of the season. In the game of fashion, it seems that with sports, they have found a winning alliance.

Kim Smith has been a professional wardrobe stylist in Honolulu since 2004. Born a true Londoner, Smith had a successful career in public relations in the fashion industry in London for more than eight years before moving to Hawai‘i in 2002. Smith’s work spans a vast array of magazines, retailers and television as well as working with individual clients on their specific style needs. See her work at kimsmithstyle.com.