Australia has had its fair share of good, bad, and particularly ugly leotards that we have celebrated and spurned as our gymnastics program has flourished at home and overseas. Here are just a few memorable (and some rather forgettable) pieces from the Team Australia wardrobe.
1988: Trudi Nurse sports a leotard that (thankfully) we didn't see a great deal of in the future. It's the kind of leotard my mum would compliment with the same remark she made the time I dyed my hair a vibrant red some years ago. "Er...it's a bit bright!"
1992: Nuthin' says style like a coloured animal on yer bodice, Julie-Anne Monico...
1996: ...Just ask Ruth Moniz.
1995: The usually divine Zeena makes a slight fashion faux pas.
1998: Trudy and the team won the Commonwealth Games title in a vibrant pink'genie smoke' leotard. And so the reign of pink began.
1999: You'd be annoyed, too, if you had to wear pink lycra all the time.
1999: A slight deviation from the pink - purple!
2001: One of my favourites, a simple blue number for the Worlds team.
2002: Not everyone could pull off black the way Miss Slater could.
2002: Another pink-clad Commonwealth Games team (but, to their credit, they did have a green leo for the final!)
2003: Monette made the Worlds beam final in a design that could best be described as 'Barbie Campervan'.
2004: By this point, we didn't know if it was P-Liddy or the girls enforcing the excessive amounts of pink and purple. Purple also featured (with black) in the All-Around final leotard on Allana and Steph Moorhouse. For the team final, once again, the girls cracked out some green.
2005: Where the interesting combination of pink-on-purple/dark blue debuted...
2006: ...And unfortunately warranted a reappearance.
2006: The Melbourne Commonwealth Games came and went with strains of green-and-gold patriotism and, of course, more pink and purple.2007-present. Unique newer additions to the Australian wardrobe have included red with diamantes, purple-ribbon-on-white, black-ribbon-on-white and blue-waves-on-white. But the green-and-gold CWG leotard proved quite popular with the crowds and with gymfans, so it was adapted (and adopted!) for members of the national squad. We have since seen green and gold at national competitions, World Cup competitons and, most recently, the Beijing Olympics.
3 comments:
oh Mez, I was planning on cracking open this huge chestnut one day, but i am so glad you did this with an Australian focus. Because I swear sometimes whoever is responsible for the Aust-tards might give the Spaniards (minus the spangles, thank god) a run for their money!
Don't you think it shows just a little lack of judgment to use so much pink in our team costumes when so many of our greatest performers over the years have been redheads?!
However, I have to confess a little soft spot for those yellow leotards (though only about .00023 of the worlds population could be flattered by this shade) because there is something sooo Australian about it. And i don't just mean the gross misappropriation of indigenous imagery (!) but the shade of the yellow. It reminds me of wattle trees and being a kid and i have always loved that photo you use on the title of your blog because of it. Love the Post!!!
i really would love to see allana slater's green velvet 2001 leotard to be re-used again - it was so beautiful. zeena's 95 leo was cute and suited her. i swear i have seen monette's 2003 worlds beam finals leo on trudy somewhere.
wasnt there a hideous opera house one in 2000
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