Look Good, Feel Good, Play Good: Nike Apparel

Read an exclusive extract from this rigorous catalogue of interviews, essays, and unseen archives that explore female athletes and the sweat-stained clothing that has ‘borne witness to their greatness.’ Here, we share an exclusive extract from Phaidon’s latest title, written by author Maisie Skidmore.

Nike’s namesake, the Greek goddess of victory, has been captured by sculptors time and again throughout history. Oftentimes in these artworks she is winged, as though about to take flight. Sometimes she is depicted in motion, arms poised to run not away but toward something, her garments loose and flowing behind her. Occasionally she looks out defiantly at her viewer—a woman in triumph, watching herself being watched.

It is fitting that there are many Nike goddesses out there now, exhibited in museums and galleries or held in archives around the world, their faces and figures based on those of real-life models who presumably spent hours posing in dusty ateliers. Each monument embodies a multitude of women all standing for a singular idea: victory. But if Nike the goddess presents one archetype of womanhood, Nike the brand seeks to support a womanhood that is as pluralistic as possible.

Throughout the pages of this book, we share many voices, many stories, many women’s perspectives. They are amateurs, champions, trainers, teachers. They are able-bodied and disabled. They push themselves because they want to find out how much they are capable of. It is no secret that women’s apparel has not always been a priority for the sporting goods industry. But where sport happens, there Nike is—and there women have always been. What’s more, they’ve always been wearing something. Rather than attempt to rewrite the story, we set out to ask questions. Starting with: what do women wear to move, and why?

Throughout the book, we look at this question through five different lenses, with the collaboration of essayists whose explorations form the framework of our chapters. The first, “Where We Play,” considers sporting apparel beyond the court, the field, and the track—tracing athletic performance out onto the street and into everyday life. “Fit Check” examines the power of color and beauty in the context of competition, and the cultural impact of athlete-entertainers performing on what might be the last truly global stage. “The Body: Seen” locates the female form as the object of this global gaze—a machine that is perpetually scrutinized and appraised but also exalted, glorified, and respected. “The Body: Owned” moves beyond what is visible to unpick the themes of empowerment and reclamation, asking what it means for a woman to harness her own strength and what is required from society in order for her to do so. Finally, “Adapt and Evolve” investigates the themes of modification and alteration throughout the history of women’s sporting apparel and questions what these experiments might mean for the future of womenswear, both for able-bodied and disabled athletes.

This book has emerged out of an archive, and its images, reproduced as best they can be, are textured, torn, and marked accordingly. Archiving is a radical act. What is saved is remembered; what is remembered becomes history. The Department of Nike Archives (DNA) houses a living collection of objects—clothing, images, ephemera, and more—that charts more than fifty years of design for athletes, thereby creating a blueprint for what comes next. We worked closely with DNA to unearth the artifacts that have defined some of these journeys, choosing to champion not shiny new garments hanging pristine and untouched but the well-worn, the sweat-stained, the ripped, and the exhausted—clothing that has borne witness to greatness.

Look Good, Feel Good, Play Good: Nike Apparel is available at Phaidon.