Nike announced the publication of the book “Look Good, Feel Good, Play Good: Nike Apparel,” which visualizes the relationship between women and their garments through five design archetypes in sporting history: warm-ups, jerseys, leggings, sports bras, and shorts.

Steeped in narrative, history, and Nike’s archive, the book’s imagery spans reproductions of Nike’s trade catalogs dating back to the early 1980s, period and contemporary photography, sketches, advertisements, fabric swatches, seasonal color palettes, original design proposals, and patents, logos, product and campaign shots, and everything in between.

The book, created in collaboration with Phaidon Press, maps the development of women’s sports apparel across 350 pages and 575 images. Each chapter features interviews with Nike athletes and trainers, including Sha’Carri Richardson, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Caster Semenya, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Dina Asher-Smith, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, Scout Bassett and Naomi Osaka.

Writer, editor and editorial consultant Maisie Skidmore authored the book, with essays by contributing writers Dal Chodha, editor-in-chief, Archivist Addendum; Michelle Millar Fisher, the Wornick curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Heather Radke, essayist, journalist, contributing editor, and reporter at Radiolab; Samantha N. Sheppard, associate professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Cornell University; and Natalie E. Wright, historian of design and disability.

“Whether you’ve followed their journeys or are exploring the trends that have defined women’s sports, ‘Look Good, Feel Good, Play Good‘ showcases the work Nike designers have done over the past 50 years to revolutionize and move women’s sport forward,” said Amy Montagne, VP/GM, Nike Women.

The book also integrates the language of apparel design and manufacturing, with sweeping pattern lines and notch markers as reminders of sporting apparel’s cultural influence. Its exposed spine is created with two different paper colors to evoke a stack of archive papers. Its cloth-bound case is wrapped in a translucent jacket made of glassine-like material and printed on both sides, allowing the details of the case to show through.

To learn more, go here.

Image courtesy Nike x Phaidon Press