Sportswear Performs

Section introduction on Sports Equipment. The contributors to this section on Sports Equipment engage with the gendered, political, and material dimensions of sport—with a particular focus on sportswear (extending to the places and practices of preparing bodies for sport). This introduction has been written as a selected guide to critical lenses that might aid a reading of the chapters. The term ‘equipment’ is taken to be inclusive of a range of technologies that perform alongside and with human bodies, not least clothing. Performers have long known that costume practices exceed a purely aesthetic dimension (of what it looks like), or as actor trainer Stella Adler put it, ‘[w]hat you put on affects you inside’ . Whether the fit of a hat or the flow of a dress, these costumed relations can alter an individual’s performance. Athletes know this same relationship. To perform in a certain way again and again, requires a bodily preparation that is inclusive of the clothes worn.