Since the Lexus Cup began four years ago, the style the lady golfers paraded were as much a performance as their prowess in their games. Cheryl Horaney of golf apparel label Rock The Green did a fantastic job attracting eyeballs to the event by dressing both teams for 2007 and 2006 stylishly, while labels Trigelle and Titania set the bar in 2005.
This year, Lexus Cup has commissioned local designer Jo Soh to put the touches into the specially designed outfits for both Team Asia and Team International. The jury is still out on whether her “street style” used on her Hansel label can be smoothly transitioned from Main Street to the fairways, but the checkered and striped motifs did turn some heads, for better or worse today, when the Lexus Cup kicked off.
It is said that “clothes maketh the man”, and even more so, clothes maketh the woman, who is deemed by gender (like it or not) to have better fashion sense in general than her male counterpart. So, sadly though sexist in every way, women athletes in general, are desired to look better in their game outfits than the men are. On top of it, they are expected to look like women, and not men, dressed up in mare’s clothing.
While Hansel might be Jo Soh’s bread and butter, she might have done a little bit better if she put a little more “Gretel” in her approach with golf apparel. Baggy shirts, and three-quarter pants may not be the best way to tog up the best women golfers in the world looking for comfort and style in a compact package. Truth be told, we saw many of the players tugging at their pants, and some (Yani Tseng) even resorting to rolling up her trouser leg above her knees.
Like the current trove of players entering the major leagues today, many of the players this year at the Lexus Cup are athletic, attractive and have a style that transcends the workman-like repetition of their sport. Katherine Hull, Nicole Castrale, Namika Omata, Paula and Natalie are keen fashionistas in their own right, and have attracted wide fan bases as much for the way they look as the way they swing a golf club. Putting them, and the rest of the ladies, in clothes that fit – both literally and aesthetically – seems the right thing to do.
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