Knit parade

Knits with a distinctly sporty flavour become season heroes, owing to their fluid and finessed form.

To compete at the highest level in elite sport, athletes will don hyper-streamlined, slick performance wear. The closer to the body the faster they can move, or so is the idea. For spring/ summer ’17, Julie de Libran’s interpretation of an athlete at Sonia Rykiel was the modern woman, moving fast to take on the world. Kitted out in the label’s slinky striped knit dresses, slashed to the thigh, she can do just that as she can in Versace’s chevron- emblazoned swinging pleat tunics and tube skirts that came with pop studs so they can be converted to a mini in a hurry. De Libran spoke about liberating women in 2017, and despite their figure-hugging silhouette the season’s technical knits have versatility and ease like Missoni’s loose ribbed tank and pants and Sportmax’s graphic column dress, harking back to the days when knits were first taken up as sportswear in cricket, golf and tennis clubs. Today we’re just as likely to wear them après-surf, as Esteban Cortazar imagined, as we are flitting through city streets. Wherever women choose to go in them, it’s clear it’s some place fast. AB