I understand the impulse to defend oneself against charges of sexism. WW evolved as a male fantasy and dressed accordingly. If the idea is to market her to women (which is commercially not obvious to me, since marketing her to adolescent males seems like a reasonable strategy as well), then she should dress like an athlete, not like a lingerie model.
What's interesting, though, is that she's not dressed like an athlete. The current trend among elite women athletes who have to do a lot of running and jumping and fighting is to wear short shorts like WW used to wear. Think of the uniforms worn by Olympic sprinters and pole vaulters or by collegiate (not just beach) volleyball players. WW's old top seems unergonomically designed to display her cartoonishly large breasts, but the new uniform keeps that too. It seems likely that an elite athlete would wear something less cleavage-bearing but still skintight and strong, probably trussed up with a built-in sports bra. And it would not cover the shoulders. I'm trying to picture sprinters, marathoners, swimmers, volleyball players in weird little jackets.
If she needs pockets to carry things, the trend in athletic wear seems to be to sew large pockets low into the hem of the shirt/jersey -- large pockets in back or small ones on one or both sides -- so that they do not raise the body's center of gravity. You wouldn't add a jacket up top just to give someone pockets.
In conclusion: less sexy, less functional. Perhaps it is slimming (which, because WW is exactly the size one wants to draw her, is pointless), but otherwise it's a losing design.
I suggested if they wanted to return to a skirt option to think along these lines "What would Wonder Woman wear if she were a Williams sister on a tennis court?" I don't always love what Venus and Serena wear, but when they get it right, it's firece and sexy and athletic all at once.
NPR Monkey See's take on the issue.
ReplyDeleteI understand the impulse to defend oneself against charges of sexism. WW evolved as a male fantasy and dressed accordingly. If the idea is to market her to women (which is commercially not obvious to me, since marketing her to adolescent males seems like a reasonable strategy as well), then she should dress like an athlete, not like a lingerie model.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting, though, is that she's not dressed like an athlete. The current trend among elite women athletes who have to do a lot of running and jumping and fighting is to wear short shorts like WW used to wear. Think of the uniforms worn by Olympic sprinters and pole vaulters or by collegiate (not just beach) volleyball players. WW's old top seems unergonomically designed to display her cartoonishly large breasts, but the new uniform keeps that too. It seems likely that an elite athlete would wear something less cleavage-bearing but still skintight and strong, probably trussed up with a built-in sports bra. And it would not cover the shoulders. I'm trying to picture sprinters, marathoners, swimmers, volleyball players in weird little jackets.
If she needs pockets to carry things, the trend in athletic wear seems to be to sew large pockets low into the hem of the shirt/jersey -- large pockets in back or small ones on one or both sides -- so that they do not raise the body's center of gravity. You wouldn't add a jacket up top just to give someone pockets.
In conclusion: less sexy, less functional. Perhaps it is slimming (which, because WW is exactly the size one wants to draw her, is pointless), but otherwise it's a losing design.
I suggested if they wanted to return to a skirt option to think along these lines "What would Wonder Woman wear if she were a Williams sister on a tennis court?" I don't always love what Venus and Serena wear, but when they get it right, it's firece and sexy and athletic all at once.
ReplyDeletefor examples, click the names in this article (crossfit games competitors).
ReplyDelete