From the ring to Fashion Week: history of boxing in fashion

Boxing has had a profound and lasting influence on the world of fashion. This impact ranges from the working-class roots of the discipline's early decades to its modern fusion with sportswear and streetwear. Boxing's iconic garments, including shorts, gloves, dressing gowns and boots, have inspired designers to incorporate boxing's signature colours, logos and silhouettes into their designs, while Muhammad Ali's classic, refined style, Mike Tyson's bold, '90s-inspired choices and Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s love of luxury have left their mark on fashion trends. In the early days of the sport, practicality defined boxing attire and as the discipline gained popularity and spread clothes and equipment became more elaborate. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the first versions of boxing gloves, shorter shorts and the iconic dressing gown emerged, symbolising the boxer's confidence and swagger. Fashion designers became interested when boxing became a spectator sport in the 1920s and 1930s. Throughout the 20th century, boxing's popularity continued to grow, fuelling its influence on fashion by making brightly coloured shorts and logos a staple in the sporstswear imagination. 

Boxing clothes in fashion

Certainly, the boxing-inspired collection that everyone remembers is John Galliano's FW04 menswear collection, with the models with their bruised and bleeding faces, their bodies covered in shiny oil, their boxers emerging from their trousers like the elastic of boxing shorts. It was then in January 2009 that, during Milan Fashion Week, Alexander McQueen presented a capsule collection in collaboration with Puma that was inspired by the world of boxing. A year later, in January 2010, a men's collection by Jean-Paul Gaultier showed in Paris that was entirely focused on boxing, complete with gloves, towels around the neck and trainers as high as boots. Another year and the trend moved from the catwalk to reality, with Dolce & Gabbana creating and dressing their own boxing team, the Dolce & Gabbana Milano Thunder, which took part in the World Series of Boxing and bore their name until the 2013-14 season. Outside of the ring, it was Clare Waight Keller who came up with leather boxing shorts for Chloé's FW12 collextion while, in 2014, Karl Lagerfeld made the emplein by designing a boxing set for Louis Vuitton complete with bag, gloves and a training mat and then shot Cara Delevigne in a boxing ring for Chanel's FW14 campaign.

Alexander McQueen x Puma (2009)

Dolce & Gabbana Milano Thunder (2011)

Jean-Paul Gaultier FW10

Chloè FW12

Karl Lagerfeld's Louis Vuitton "Boxing Trunk" (2014)

Chanel FW14 Campaign

Philipp Plein FW15

Ports 1961 x Everlast (2016)

Puma x Balmain (2019)

Ryan Garcia's Dior outfit (2022)

Cavalli SS22 Campaign

S.S. Daley SS22

John Lawrence Sullivan x Everlast (2023)

The following year it was Philipp Plein's turn to sign a ring-inspired collection presented at Piazza Vetra, Milan, where the collaboration between Ports 1961 and Everlast was presented the following year. In 2018 it was Virgil Abloh who signed a collaborative Off-White x Selfridges capsule inspired by boxing while in 2019 Versace created boxing gloves covered in his baroque pattern and Balmain collaborated with Puma creating a campaign that saw Cara Delevigne return to the ring. In 2021, after the lockdown, Mike Tyson made headlines for his appearance in Cavalli's campaign and S.S. Daley created a look inspired by early 20th century boxing suits for his brand's SS22. More recently, Dior signed boxing prodigy Ryan Garcia's outfit and John Lawrence Sullivan created a boxing-themed collaboration with Everlast.

Boxing trainers in fashion

It's the oldest story in the world and it repeats itself, in fashion, in a cyclical manner: streetwear welcomes with open arms trainers that have helped consolidate the aesthetics of the world's most popular sports. Now it is the turn of boxing shoes. Francesco Risso of Marni, Gucci's FW23 collection, are just a few of the designers who have decided to be inspired by trainers marked by this line and to match them with the most diverse outfits seen on the catwalks of the latest Fashion Weeks. Let's be clear, this is nothing new: in 2017, PUMA and Fenty had presented under the spotlight a shoe that clearly took inspiration from boxing. And even before that, in 2015, again PUMA and Rihanna had recovered an archive piece of the noble art: the Gong model, released as far back as the 1970s, and transformed with a contemporary eye into the Eskiva. The duopoly on the market of sabots and mules was then joined by another competitor: boxing shoes, which had never before returned in such large numbers. And Lily Rose Depp also shows us.

A narrative of the latter can also be established. How and when do they come into being? What features are they characterised by? Footwear in boxing begins to take hold with the introduction of equipment; not a foregone conclusion if we consider that boxing became part of the programme of the Olympic Games in 700 B.C. and we will have to wait until 1747, in England, to see Jack Broughton introduce rules that will prove fundamental to the sport in question. With Jack Broughton's ideas, boxing began to become a regulated sport step by step: it was called by the informal name of bare knuckle fighting, but it was thanks to Broughton that fighters began to cover their hands with a sort of bandage. To arrive at footwear and its form, more or less as you know it, we still have to wait some time: from the testimonies we have, at least until 1866/1867, the year in which John Graham Chambers theorised the rules of contemporary boxing, fighters fought wearing low leather shoes combined with very long socks. Thus, on their feet there is still no structure capable of supporting their ankles, which is essential to give stability and support to boxers who are always - more or less - in an upright position in the ring during their performances.

In fact, this is what will become established as the major difference between boxing and wrestling shoes, with the former offering rigid ankle support to prevent fighters from losing their balance, and the latter having a more mobile, low-top support to facilitate the different holds available to the athlete. Modern and contemporary boxing shoes, which have existed more or less since the 1970s, are generally made of leather and combined with synthetic and more or less breathable materials. The great comeback of this type of shoe imposes itself on a market that seemed to have temporarily sidelined high-top footwear, but which, led by boxing shoes, cowboy boots and biker boots, could offer a variety that lately - at least from the point of view of footwear structure - had been lacking.