Off Guard: Style
2-time Olympian Perdita Felicien examines unconventional themes in weekly podcast
Hosted by two-time Olympian Perdita Felicien, Off Guard explores one unconventional theme each week, considered three different ways.
Check out the this week's show:
Is looking good part of the game?
From eye-grabbing soccer hairdos to harlequin-outfitted curling crews, to NFL QB Cam Newton's sartorial fireworks, there is no simple way to summarize style in sports — except to say that, like all things evolutionary, it must benefit the wearer somehow. Perhaps Joe Thornton is better able to surprise opponents by ambushing them from behind his beard.
This week, CBC Sports' podcast Off Guard asks some juicy questions about style in sport.
Perdita starts us off with a call to Kingston, Jamaica, where the blazing sprinter Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce is famous for two things: Olympic golds in the 100m, and an approach to hair style that is truly show stopping. Do the two go hand in hand? Does a lemon-yellow-and-green mane throw competitors off their races? Also, we get an all-pro lesson on sports and fashion from a young Canadian woman, Sheraine Robinson, stylist to none other than NBA star Steph Curry.
With so much attention paid to the personal branding of high-performance athletes, is it any wonder that kids' teams aspire to flashy looks too? Jamie Strashin dives into a swimming club where high-end bathing suits can now run upwards of $700. Yes, that's seven hundred bucks for one bathing suit! Don't be thinking that your kids' perfectly good helmets and gloves (and bags and jackets and sweats…) have another season in them either. All-matching, complete outfits, new every season, are de rigeur for amateur sports associations… swag sells!
We wrap up this week with some sweet memories of the way things used to be among NHL stylistos. Pete Mahovlich and Bob Cole are happy to move with the times, and they're big admirers of current cool dressers, not least of them P.K. Subban. But they can't hide a wistful remembrance of the days when fedora, suit and tie were the other uniform for everyone in the professional game.
To listen to the podcast, go to cbc.ca/offguard
To subscribe and tell us what you think, email us at offguard@cbc.ca