Anna Kessel

They say finding the perfect pair of jeans is hard, but try finding great activewear. Leggings that don’t slip down when you run, tops that don’t ride up in a downward dog, a sports bra that keeps your breasts supported but isn’t so tight that it involves a panicked sweaty struggle to get off, or on.

With the rise in women getting active – thank you This Girl Can – and the huge growth in profile around women’s sport which Telegraph Women’s Sport is so proud to be leading, there is something of an explosion happening in sports kit for women. Over the last 12 months alone we’ve seen the launch of modest swimwear aimed at empowering Muslim women and girls, a post-mastectomy sports bra, even make-up for the gym.

We may have left the days of sprinting in corsets, as explored in a stunning historical photo special from Fiona Tomas on pages 6-7, but there is still some way to go before sports kit is truly liberating for women.

Even as clothing develops through technological advances, we remain stuck with debilitating tropes around having to be attractive in the very sphere in which we should be free from those pressures. “Bum-sculpting leggings”, for example, a truly depressing newcomer to this field. Can we please just be active, and enjoy it, without having to think how our butt should look?

In elite sport, the stakes are higher still. Serena Williams’s catsuit notoriously banned from the French Open, despite its importance in supporting her post-natal recovery from life-threatening blood clots. The policing of kit for women, in some sports measured to the centimetre, with the modest wear preferred by Muslim women often deemed to provide too much coverage, while skimpy leotards are the only option available in gymnastics. For Para sport athletes, functional kit is inaccessible for too many women.

Finally, while clothes and make-up are all too often belittled as a superficial female indulgence, star columnist Dina Asher-smith explores why fashion is an important form of self-expression in her sport.

Kit, it is clear, is a feminist issue. We hope you enjoy our take on it.