This Skirt Won’t Work! How Women Athletes Changed Their Clothes and Changed the Game

Cooper and Byrne open their defiantly titled book with an image of four confident girl athletes dressed in sportswear. It’s a stark contrast to the history that follows, which contextualizes the impractical clothing that women athletes have long endured (“Dress covering everything from your neck to your ankles, huge puffy sleeves, a stifling corset, and layers upon layers of UNDERGARMENTS”). But around the turn of the 20th century, as detailed in this accounting, five individual athletes and two women’s teams—including figures of various abilities, backgrounds, and skin tones—said enough and donned athletic dress that made big strides toward leveling the playing field. Supple cartooning portrays the subjects as unstoppable forces, while verse lines blend historical prose with the athletes’ voices: cyclist Katherine “Kittie” Knox (1874–1900), for example, declares, “My new knickerbockers might still have their mockers,// but it’s time that I set these legs FREE!” The battle over inclusive athletic wear may be far from over, but this design history aptly shows how some athletes’ hard-won freedoms live on. Ages 4–8. (Dec.)