STYLE of SPORT | Gear & Apparel Curated for the Stylish Sports Enthusiast

On Christmas Eve 1944, two all-star football teams took the field to play the game of their lives. They were former collegiate players, record breaking All-Americans, and a number of team captains from schools like Cornell, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and Brown who represented one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled. They should still have been playing at these universities, but instead they were stationed in the middle of the Pacific ocean, on an island called Guadalcanal, now U.S. Marines training for what would be the bloodiest battle of WWII, the battle of Okinawa. That football game became known as “The Mosquito Bowl”.

“It was over a few beers that former collegiate football players in the 29th Regiment of the 6th Marine Division stood toe-to-toe with former collegiate football players of the 4th Regiment and made the emphatic claim that the 29th would kick the 4th’s ass if there was ever a football game between the two”, writes Buzz Bissinger in his newest book The Mosquito Bowl, “which of course was preposterous in a place like Guadalcanal with a war going on.”

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. “If you merged the players from the 29th and the 4th into one team, it would not only have posed a challenge to any National Football League franchise, with proper training it most likely would have beaten most of them, as the aggregate included sixteen players who had already been drafted by pro football or would receive offers.” Read More

IMAGES FROM TOP: SURFER MAGAZINE: 1960-2020; INTO THE WILD; AFROSURF

From the beaches of Southern California to the shores of Africa, a summer swell of photographic surf tomes — SURFER MAGAZINE: 1960-2020, INTO THE WILD, and AFROSURF — celebrate and explore the rich history and culture of the sport through a diverse spectrum of lenses:

In its six decades in print, Surfer magazine was considered “the bible of surfing” before it ceased its print edition in 2020. SURFER MAGAZINE: 1960-2020, culls together the most iconic covers and pages from the magazine’s history to create a curated anthology on the evolution of the sport, and its style, design, and culture.

INTO THE WILD is a vibrant celebration of surf life captured by fashion photographer Matthew Brookes, who followed a group of young surfers from Venice Beach on their adventures up and down the California coast. The result is a documentary of van culture, and the story of youth who follow their passion — living for the simple joy of surf, travel, and freedom as they chase the waves.

AFROSURF showcases the beauty and diversity of African surf culture in a rich and colorful collection of profiles, essays, photographs, and illustrations that for the first time showcases the surfers of Africa’s vast coastline — from Morocco to Somalia, Senegal to Mozambique, South Africa and beyond. This vibrant book is the creation of Mami Wata, a Cape Town surf company dedicated to the power of African surf. Read More

BREATHE IN, CASH OUT AUTHOR MADELEINE HENRY

 
Breathe In, Cash Out is the debut novel by 27-year-old Madeleine Henry that offers an inside and satirical look at both the finance and yoga industry. The book tells the first-person story of a young Wall Street banking analyst, Allegra Cobb, who plans to quit her job as soon she gets her year-end bonus to pursue her real dream of becoming a full-time yoga guru.

What may seem like pursuits at the opposite end of the spectrum – yoga and banking – start to narrow when Allegra meets famed Instagram yogi, Skylar Smith, whose manipulative actions jeopardize whether Allegra will even get that bonus. Both industries get skewered, coming off equally self-absorbed and self-serving.

Ivy league grad and analyst at a top-tier bank – author Madeleine Henry’s career path has not been so different from that of her leading character. She herself went to Yale, and after to Goldman Sachs. Unlike Allegra however, her passion for yoga started after she left banking. As one can see Madeleine is a serious yogi, and with her own impressive Instagram following (@madeleinehenryyoga).  Read More

FOUR GENERATIONS OF THE FLETCHER FAMILY

Christian, Dibi, Greyson , Herbie, Nathan, and Nathan’s baby – Lazer Zappa Fletcher 

Astrodeck, San Clemente, California, 2015
Photo: Rafael Pulido, courtesy Fletcher Family Archive

Now on view at Gagosian in New York is the exhibition The Fletcher Family: A Lifetime in Surf, celebrating the soon-to-be published tome of the same title by Rizzoli. The legendary surf and skate dynasty that is the Fletcher family – Herbie and wife Dibi, their sons Christian and Nathan, and grandson Greyson – has been an institution in the action sport culture for decades, with an influence that extends beyond to the worlds of fashion, music, streetwear, and art.

Spanning fifty years of epic stories, photographs, personal ephemera and memorabilia, The Fletcher Family: A Lifetime in Surf is a visual memoir of this immensely colorful “first family” of surfing. Dibi narrates each chapter, accompanied by personal anecdotes about the family from notable contributors such as artist Julien Schnabel, photographer Bruce Weber, surfers Gerry Lopez and Kelly Slater, and the son of one of Vans founders, Steve Van Doren.

CLOCKWISE TOP: HERBIE, MAALAEA, HAWAII, 1976. Photo: Art Brewer, courtesy Fletcher Family Archive; HERBIE AND NATHAN, 1977. Photo: Art Brewer, courtesy Fletcher Family Archive; DIBI AND HERBIE, NORTH SHORE, HAWAII, 1970. Photo: courtesy Fletcher Family Archive; HERBIE, NORTH SHORE, HAWAII, 1969. Photo: Art Brewer, courtesy Fletcher Family Archive

In addition to selected imagery featured in the book, Gagosian has installed artworks by Herbie Fletcher called Wrecktangles. These large sculptures have been made from the surfboards ridden — and broken — by the greatest contemporary surfers at the Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii. The board theme recurs in the Wall of Disaster series, which feature masses of skateboards mounted to the wall in anarchic accumulations. Similar to their surfboard counterparts, they form a cacophony of logos and images. Read More

A new breed of sport magazine has hit the newsstands. These bespoke publications are not the product of a big media conglomerate, but published by and tailored to those passionate fans who want a different point of view than your typical sports magazine. With an artful approach, bold yet unconventional photography, and words spoken softly over the roar — each of these delivers those stories that often go untold with a journalistic and visual appeal that transcends the sport itself. Read More

“A surf shack is not built around what you think you need, so much as understanding all the things you don’t”, says writer Nina Freudenberger in the introduction to Surf Shack:Laid-Back Living by the Water, a beautiful new coffee table book that takes us inside the bungalows, trailers, cabins, and beach homes of those lucky enough to call themselves surfers. 

Surfing is a way of life reflected in the homes of those who live it. Freudenberger moved from New York City to Venice Beach, California in 2012, and became so enamored of this relaxed and easy going lifestyle she traveled to 18 cites in 4 countries to bring us inside the homes of such lifelong surfers and dedicated newcomers as: Blake and Heather Mycoskie of TOMS; hotelier Sean MacPherson and family; Jawbone founder Yves Behar and Sabrina Burell; and longboard pro Kassia Meador.

“Surfing is a natural filter for life’s nonsense”, says Freudenberger, and what these homes have in common is a style that prioritizes “ease over elegance, good vibes over any grand vision.” They are less about impressive architecture and more about cultivating truly authentic spaces that embrace the life spent in between surf sessions.

With vibrant photographs of design details and bright beaches — from Malibu to the Rockaways, from Japan to Australia — this book captures the soulful milieu of a lifestyle we all aspire to, in and out of the water. 

American society girl Minnie Cushing carries her surfboard under her arm. Sprouting Rock Beach Club, Newport, Rhode Island, September 1965. All photos by Slim Aarons/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Now on chic coffee tables everywhere is Slim Aarons:Women, the newest monograph of Slim Aarons photographs. As chronicler of the lives of the rich and aristocratic in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s, Slim Aarons was unrivaled. His photographs are the embodiment of “the good life”, which of course includes the sporting life. Skiing in Austria, waterskiing in Antibes, surfing in Newport, canoeing in Lake Tahoe, and snorkeling in Bermuda are a few of the “leisure” activities, as Aarons and his subjects would refer to them, featured in the book.

Princess Lucy Ruspoli stands in front of a colourful wall of old skis in Lech am Arlberg, Austria, February 1979. 

Aarons served as a photographer in World War II, and when it was over turned his camera in the opposite direction. According to the author of Slim Aarons:Women, Laura Hawk, who was Aaron’s assistant for over a decade, it was “people seeking pleasure” that inspired him, and he absolutely loved shooting sports. What became his niche of photographing the super wealthy was by accident, but it was there that he found the splendor in these activities and he was always looking for a new sporting angle. Hawk described one of their many trips to St. Moritz, when Aarons had heard about a new sport called “ski joering” at the famed Palace Hotel, where skiers were being across the ice pulled by a horse. He couldn’t wait to photograph it. Recalls Hawk, “Slim ran out into the middle of the track to get it head on. He was like a child about it. He loved the adrenaline rush!”
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