Canadian number one SAMANTHA CORNETT follows Simon Rosner into the Squash Mad Winter Sale to join the discussion about squash fashion, this time from a female perspective.
By SAM CORNETT
Halloween has left me feeling inspired; with so many fabulous and and outrageous outfits, how could it not!
Maybe we won’t see any eye patches or gorilla masks on the squash court, but we could see a little Bambam/Pebbles a la Flintstones, Pocahontas or maybe a Ninja in action!
For the most part, when I consider WSA fashion, words that come to mind are efficiency, comfort, and simplicity. Which makes sense. We have to be able to fly around the court without our skirts unravelling! But wouldn’t it be fun to mix it up a bit?
Tennis has a few women who throw a fashion curve ball (Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Williams sisters, Sharapova occasionally). The most notable outfits I’ve seen on our tour are Kasey Brown’s party dresses and Nicol David’s flouncy skirts. Cute and different, but certainly not wild.
I love a good flourescent top, skirt, anything really, but I doubt I’ve ever worn anything like Serena William’s denim skirt, belly top combo that really gets people talking. Okay, maybe when I was 14, but I was growing like a weed and it wasn’t on purpose!
The thing is, there are no surprises and very few options! Sports clothes come out for tennis players, or yogis, and we translate them onto the squash court. So we have beautiful dresses, fun colours, flattering (and unflattering) shapes.
I don’t know if we’ll ever have a ballsy, Miley Cyrus-type statement on the squash court (save Vicky Botright). The closest I’ve come to this are a pair of black athletic leggings that I didn’t realize were see-through until I saw someone else in the gym with this problem, and thought I should probably check mine.
In the end, we are professionals and are more worried about our performance than our outfits. Makes sense to me!  Yet it’s important to remember that when you look good you feel good. And by extension, when you feel good you feel confident. If you’re a sportsperson, or a life person, you can relate to the importance of confidence.  So maybe those kick-ass outfits with that extra little bit of “something special” really are important.
There’s a lot to worry about, as we squash players are busy lunging, hopping, sprinting, bumping, sometimes diving (not me, too far down), twisting, turning, and SWEATING! Â An outfit that can get through all of that and still look put together is impressive. Â Designers have to keep in mind a flexible, comfortable design that is worthy of the amount that we sweat.
So, calling on all sports apparel designers out there, we are looking for some awesome, functional, one-of-a-kind creations on the WSA World Tour.
It’s a brilliant opportunity for designers and apparel companies to showcase their products as we work to grow our tour and appear more and more on PSA Squash TV and other sports networks to onlookers around the world. I’m happy to be the test subject!
SAM CORNETT
