From Play to Fabric: How Sports Patterns and Textures Shaped Fashion
Sports aren’t only about games; they’re full of textures, patterns, and materials that end up living far beyond the field. From the leather on a baseball to the diamonds on a golf sweater, what begins as function becomes fashion, and once started as art. These details carry stories of heritage, identity, and culture, woven into the very fabrics that define our style.
Naomi Campbell for Louis Vuitton x Takashi Murakami Spring 2004. Photo via Louis Vuitton.
Squares in Motion
The simplest of games—chess—it gave us one of the most enduring visual patterns: the checkered board. Black and white squares that started as a strategy formed into a style. From ska and punk movements to luxury runways, the grid has always been more than geometry; it’s a true statement of contrast.
By the 1970s, a second wave of ska and punk movements had adopted the check as their signature style. The bold grid, often seen on album covers and stagewear, stood for unity across race and class while channeling the raw energy of counterculture. It was geometry, but also rebellion. The ska culture in particular embraced the black and white check as a metaphor for racial harmony, reflecting the genre’s roots in Jamaica and its crossover to the UK, where Caribbean and British youth joined in dance. The pattern became more than a backdrop as it was a banner for inclusivity, music, and defiance.
The Specials, 2 Tone, and ska revival. Photo via Specials.
In punk, the check took on a harder edge. Paired with leather jackets, the pattern didn't reflect harmony, but disruption. It became a tool of visual noise by clashing against authority, tradition, and the polishness of mainstream culture. While ska used the check to unify, punk used it to fracture, turning the same pattern into a badge of opposition.
What makes the check powerful is this elasticity; it can live in different worlds, mean different things, and still hold onto its identity. In ska, it danced, and in punk, it fought. And, in luxury fashion, it ascended.
Checkered Turned Monogram
No house has leaned on the check more successfully than Louis Vuitton. In 1888, they introduced the Damier canvas to the world. Damier—literally meaning “checkerboard” in French looked like a simple grid, but was in fact a sophisticated act of branding. The repeating squares set Vuitton trunks apart from imitators, as it became a chessboard reimagined not for travel. It was practical and proof that a pattern could carry the weight of identity as much as a name or logo.
Louis Vuitton 1900s Damier Trunk.
But the story didn’t stop there. After Louis Vuitton’s death in 1892, his son Georges took the family business in an even more ambitious direction. In 1896, he introduced the LV Monogram canvas, an entirely new visual built on quatrefoils, flowers, and the now-famous initials. Inspired by the late Victorian fascination with Oriental motifs, the Monogram was both decorative and deeply functional. It became a code of prestige, an emblem that would soon transcend the Damier into its fame.
For many decades, the Damier existed in the shadow of the LV monogram, but in the 1990s, Marc Jacobs brought it back to the scene. Suddenly, this nineteenth-century chessboard found itself on the shoulders of the biggest names of the decade.
Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2013 Campaign. Photo via Louis Vuitton.
As Louis Vuitton continued, releases like Damier Azur softened the grid into a more feminine look, Damier Graphite sharpened it into sleek urban menswear, and Takashi Murakami’s collaborations blurred it into art. Each iteration of the pattern proved that the check was more than a motif; it was a canvas for reinvention. The same black-and-white pattern that once soundtracked rebellion now symbolized legacy, aspiration, and global luxury on a massive scale.
Naomi Campbell for Louis Vuitton x Takashi Murakami Spring 2004. Photo via Louis Vuitton.
Leather for Purpose
Before the fabrication of jerseys and synthetic fabrics, leather was the first true sports material. Footballs, baseballs, rugby balls, and saddles were all stitched from tough hides built to last. Over time, that same durability and tactility shaped many of the luxury leather goods and accessories we carry today.
Hermès is the clearest example. Born from saddlery, the house elevated equestrian craft into luxury. Their campaigns spotlight heritage, which bridges sport, craft, and luxury in a single frame. Leather wasn’t just a material for Hermès; it was a language of movement, a statement that utility could be refined into art. Every bag, belt, or accessory carried the precision of the stables.
Hermès Steinkraus Saddle made with pigskin and cowhide, 1975. Photo via Vladimir Marti.
The same story applies to Coach. Founded in 1941, the brand took inspiration from baseball gloves, studying their texture, reinforced seams, and longevity. Through Coach’s 1962 designer, Bonnie Cashin, she incorporated industrial hardware into designs, while remaining both aesthetic and functional. That design DNA became the iconic handbags by Coach, with stitching echoing the craftsmanship of sports leather. Even in modern campaigns, Coach often nods back to those roots, reminding customers that every bag has a story of utility turned into style.
Vintage Coach advertisement for Coach Leatherware. Photo via Coach.
Leather may have started on the field, but it ended up in handbags, shoes, and streetwear. If that’s not proof that what once held air now holds culture, nothing is.
Argyle: The Golf Diamond
If leather gave us toughness, golf gave us polish. The argyle pattern, known for its interlocking diamonds first tied to Scotland, became global through golf knitwear and patterns. But, argyle was more than that; it was code for refinement, precision, and quiet status.
Pringle of Scotland Fall/Winter 2018. Photo via Harley Weir.
No brand has championed this more than Pringle of Scotland, which popularized argyle in the 1920s and still references its roots in campaigns today. On a global scale, Ralph Lauren took it further, weaving argyle into the Polo lifestyle—it became prep, Ivy League, and Sunday leisure on repeat. In both cases, diamonds signaled heritage and aspiration for the brands and their consumers.
On a more high end scale, in the 2000s and 2010s, labels like Gucci reimagined argyle with eccentric color clashing, while Tommy Hilfiger used it to keep the sense of “Americana prep” alive. Even in today's fashion scenes, argyle takes over the fall season year after year. Argyle has definitely had its run from old clubhouses to modern runways; the pattern’s journey shows how sport’s visual codes evolve but never disappear.
Miu Miu Spring/Summer 2025. Photo via Getty Images.
The Walk Forward
Sports prove to leave behind more than athletics, they leave behind cultural movements. These patterns and textures remind us that fashion is a game of translation, taking function and turning it into meaning, and vice versa.
Next time you see a check, a stitch, or a diamond knit, remember: it didn’t just start in fashion. It started on the field with the tools and uniforms that built culture long before the runway ever claimed them as its own.
