Fashion: The sporting life in style (no running required)

Here’s the good news – you don’t have to be sporty to work the sports trend.

Actually, you probably wouldn’t be able to work out or get very far if you were wearing many of the items involved in this coming spring’s track-inspired trend.

Some of the fabrics are most unsuitable for gym or field, combining, as they do, luxe and embellished effects with sporting cuts and lines.

Still, the overall look is undoubtedly athletic, which can be both comforting and deceiving, as anyone who has wandered about all day in their trackie pants or leggings teamed with cool hoodie top can testify. You feel sporty all right, but you haven’t actually broken into a sweat or a cardio-boosting pant once.

On the international catwalks, the sporting trend has been taken up and spun with a huge degree of enthusiasm and a quite staggering display of ingenuity and imagination.

Balenciaga showed simple sporting shapes of cropped sleeveless vests and matching high-waisted, thigh-sliced shorts in a purple stud-effect fabric, blending texture, opulence and dynamism. This is high-end, play-time fashion, worn with strappy heels. Not practical for the gym, but super-cool for clubbing or watching the sun go down as you sip a Manhattan from the deck of a harbour-moored yacht (as, of course, we all do).

There’s quite a retro feel to much of this season’s sports trend – and again, this is wide-ranging. Marc by Marc Jacobs gave us silky two-tone blouson bombers in red and beige teamed with 70s-style silky red running shorts (I’m reminded of the moustached chaps in the 118 advert), while Marni showed bat-sleeved dresses that were reminiscent of women’s sporting and daywear attire in the 1920s, high-waisted, gathered kimono styles. Emilio Pucci, meanwhile, went for a more 1980s vibe with silver shorts and a mesh vest top, and Prada showed knit pleat skirts with legwarmers, in a look that mixed the Twenties with the Eighties.

All sporting life and era was there, although it was perhaps the old hands, Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger, who offered the most iconic and effective looks of the season, both combining long, sleek, fluid lines with minimalist classic detail such as contrast piping and go-faster stripes. The stunning simplicity of Lacoste’s ankle-skimming zip-through tracksuit dress is hard to beat, and it is precisely this sort of piece that I shall be seeking out for a wardrobe update.

Look out too for parka-inspired dresses in silky fabrics, and tunic dresses with dip-back hems in this season’s bold bright shades, for effortless ease with impact. Drawstring trousers are everywhere, in all shapes and fabrics, so select the style that suits you best – so versatile, they dress up and down.

Finally, get yourself a pair of lace-up white plimsolls, for comfort with classic cool.

Twitter: @yorkshirefashQ