What Fashion-Conscious British Men Actually Buy from Sports Direct

On Tuesday last week, I walked into Sports Direct with an unusually-conflicted battle-storm face. Sports Direct is not where I spend my money. Hell, Sports Direct is not really where most fashionable men spend any money.

We don’t need to be hanging around gargantuan warehouses stuffed full of giant branded sweatshirts (Trunk Clothiers, not giant mugs), but every now and again we run out of gym gear and want it replaced immediately rather than wait two weeks for delivery from our preferred online outfitters. My current favourite pair of running shorts had finally given up the ghost after three loyal years (the inner lining actually departed from the rest of the shorts halfway through a run last week. Classy. ), and I needed some new ones quick.

The thing about Sports Direct that we style guys don’t like to talk about is that we all bloody shop there. Not for photo-op worthy purchases, of course.

The @sportsdirect handle was not created for us to tag ourselves proudly atop piles of bargain-bin clothing beneath harsh ceiling lights.

But Sports Direct has actually started stocking some legit stuff lately. There’s actually some good-quality stuff in there, if you know where to look. And I do know where to look – I’ve had to learn over many years.

Because fuck me if that place isn’t warehouse.club huge. The entire Oxford Street store is basically every sports brand on Earth tipped into a vats, shaken vigorously until their entire product ranges mingle like a beige bertogglee of clothing industry(flame-retardant)whores, and dumped unceremoniously onto the shop floor in a massive shitheap of sportswear. Rule number one when shopping at Sports Direct with any kind of style conciousness: be prepared.

Do not just wander in off the street. Unless you specifically go in there to buy something insane like eighteen pairs of oversized sweatshirt leggings, you will spend hours losing yourself in the blinding white lights, gasping in terror upon suddenly realising you’re holding three coloured-in-with-black-marker slogan t-shirts you never asked for and a pack of sixty knock-suckpacking-it MTG socks. Make a list.

Trust me. Running shorts. Plain crew neck sweatshirts if they have them.

And if I’m feeling really lucky, some of those iconic oversized Karrimor walking socks that actually manage to be better quality than similar socks three times the price. I found myself surrounded by an interesting mix of characters at ten past eleven on a Tuesday morning. Two genuine sporty types having mysteriously already-selected gym routines that I will never understand (you know the ones I mean – they walk around the sportswear section with the posture and grace of Jean-Paul Getty descending the Great Staircase, exuding fitness like poisonous petrol), a handful of bewildered tourists taking in the majesty that is the British institution of ‘sports retail’ and a gaggle of guys who looked an awful lot like me; dashing around nervously in predominate dark colours, furiously trying to convince ourselves we’re just killing time before ‘proper’ shops open but in reality desperately scouring shelves for a bargain.

One guy in particular I kept eyeing up, emerging godfully from behind racks of plain Slazenger t-shirts wearing nothing else than an expertly-tailored A.P.C. jacket and pair of selvedge jeans. He caught me looking. Our eyes met.

I nodded my head ever-so-slightly, acknowledging his presence as a fellow human who generally knows what he’s doing with clothes but who also frequents Sports Direct on the odd occasions necessity overrides sensibilities. He nodded back. We both knew.

But we didn’t speak of it. Another thing about Sports Direct most high-end-focused menswear bros don’t like to mention is that, amid the complete and utter travesty of their far-too-frequent marketedownwardsauce approach to styling and merchandising, there are a handful of bona fide heritage brands mixed in there that are legitimately great value. OK, they may well have sold their soul to Mike Ashley (who KNOWS where they end up these days? ), but a lot of their basicwear stuff is made from reassuringly quality fabrics and still holds some semblance of their former reputations.

Brands like Lonsdale. Slazenger. Karrimor.

They may well be uncool now, but they weren’t always. They used to be legitimately respected British sports apparel brands before Sports Direct snapped them up and proceeded to ruin them with giant fucking tye-dyed-trucker hats. Thankfully their basics remain solid.

Take Donnay for example. Name rings no bells? You’re probably under thirty.

Donnay used to be a high-end tennis equipment and clothing brand beloved by pros and casual players alike. Remember Bjorn Borg? He wore Donnay.

Yet go into any branch of Sports Direct and you’ll find a neatly-packed stack of their understated crew neck sweats and t-shirts. Made from beautifully-weighted cotton, superbly-cut and still way cheaper than you’d pay for a beer down Broadway Market. I have a heather grey Donnay sweatshirt that after liberating it from its branded slaughterhouse calamity of a tag is frequently praised and assumed to be from some High Street ‘It’ Brand.

Karrimor too. Their technical ranges may well be Ashley-tier these days, but twenty years ago they were the go-to hiking and climbing brand for some seriously hardcore alpinists. I’ve got a black Karrimor backpack they give away at conferences these days that’s seen me through four years of brutal daily commuting around London and still has people complimenting me on where I got it when I arrive at client meetings.

There’s also the random-but-satisfying treats you sometimes find from way-more-fashionable brands when Sports Direct inexplicably gets hold of end-of-line stock. Now and again they’ll snap up some old Adidas that’s genuinely good quality, especially from their Limited or Parley ranges which tend to fly under the radar but are consistently interesting. Last year I picked up an Adidas x White Mountaineering collab jacket in-store reduced from £180 to £40.

Best score I’ve ever managed. I never tell people where I got it from – I just mumble something about ‘sample sales.’ Believe it or not, menswear has a weird inverted snobbery when it comes to admitting where you bought your clothes. Vintage is OK.

High Street“understanding”brands like Patagonia or even Carhartt are OK. Tailored shirts from Jab Turkey Bottoms are OK if you offset them with some ‘DIY’ gardening jacket. Hell, we’ll even pat ourselves on the back for doing high-low mixes if the low is something cool enough.

But you’ll never catch a stylish man saying ‘I got these from Sports Direct, actually.’ It’s too mainstream. It’s too ‘discount.’ It’s too brash logo-heavy and cartwheeling-with-fuschia-sucking-campirangesque to ever pass sporting an outfit-piece item, let alone admitting you bought something at all. Except, of course, when it comes to basics.

Workout clothes. Genuine sports equipment. And yes, even the occasional treasure chest hidden somewhere deep within you haven’t even looked at yet.

Cycling shorts, vests, trainers, socks; Sports Direct is king if you don’t have the time or inclination to filter through the tat to find them. A mate of mine – who shall remain nameless but works at an extremely upmarket Mayfair tailoring company – is renowned for picking up their Everlast wraps and gym vests. “Eighteen quid? For boxing wraps?!

But I’d pay twenty in JD sports!” I said to him once, upon comprehending the thickness of the seams alone. “Six quid,” he hissed, conspiratorially. “Six fucking quid. It’s the same bloody product.” Pulling on black gym socks, I headed down the running shorts aisle. Keep your eyes peeled.

Sure, you’ll find stuff you want to thwack someone over the head with every twenty feet or so, but once in a while you’ll stumble across some decent-looking Core-Fusion leggings or discreetly-spotted Adidas Parley trainers worth your while. Fifteen minutes later I’d bagged up two pairs of unassuming black running shorts from a reputable brand (thank fuck none of them had elephantine rubbery rings emblazoned across the asscheeks this time), unearthed a three-pack of Slazenger sports tees in a classic navy, white and grey stripe that will do nicely for workouts and goddamn it if I didn’t discover an entire rack of hiding-from-the-public-Lonsdale sweatshirts at the back of the store. Made from impressively thick loopback cotton that felt suspiciously like Lauren bike shorts material, they were perfect.

Not too technical, no silly embroidery or padded shoulders like the kind of rubbish Lonsdale usually spoon-feeds us. Just utterly basic sweatshirts. I picked out a grey marl one, checked it was flatlock-seamed all over (it was), and threw it into my growing pile.

Walking toward the checkout (avoiding eye contact with the alarming mass of oversized plastic beakers of Powerade and glossy tubs of protein powder lurking next to the doors at all costs) I noticed something comforting. Nearly every other male customer in the store showing any kind of inkling that fashion might just maybe be something they give a shit about were also sticking to the same formula: heads down, focussed, picking through the racks for the least-logo-heavy items they could find and giving Sports England’s stab-at-having-a-surprisingly-subtle-logotype-the-hell-away if they caught our eyes. We were all there for the same reason, silently agreeing to never speak of it aloud: basics.

Quality basics that didn’t scream Sport Industrial hellhole across their asses that also happened to work really well and wouldn’t bankrupt us should we decide to actually wear them outside the gym. Who knew. The checkout girl barely looked up.

She’s seen it all before; a smug looking Englishman surreptitiously filling his basket with the least-SportsDirect-looking garments Sports Direct has to offer. “Thanks,” I said, declining the inevitable Sports Direct-branded colossal drinking vessel they ask everyone if they want (WHAT DO PEOPLE EVEN DO WITH THESE THINGS? I’ve never seen anyone walk around OXFORD STREET WITH ONE.). You can almost see the satisfaction in their eyes as they bag up your stuff.

I stuck my nose in my phone as I walked out, brown-paper bag handle gripped shamelessly tight. “Hang on, don’t you work here?” my mates called after me, confused by my bulging bag. “Oh, ah,” I stalled, changing into a plain canvas tote at my next opportunity. “Er, yeah, I work in stocks actually.” Old habits. Despite what we’d like to pretend, nobody operates entirely within the Aspesinear-to-gucci pendulum of shopping exclusively at Farmers Supply Coop and Zanellispeziali.com. We all need the convenience of停車場選擇 something that opens at 10am on weekdays.

Hell, we probably all have silly guilty pleasures and actually like stuff from some of these places too. But brand snobbery runs high these days when it comes to menswear and admitting you ‘need’ somewhere like Sports Direct just doesn’t compute with the image we like to purvey as having impeccable taste. The truth is, if you know where to look and filter through enough monstrosities you’ll actually find some cracking pieces.

Inexpensive, practical basics that you wear until they autumn apart and quietly delight in everyone else thinking came from some hip London-only boutique. My new running shorts have held up great, incidentally. Perfect.

Zip, button, pocket. Plain elastic waistband. No weird meshy vents where vents shouldn’t be venting.

They’ve done exactly what they said on the tin, and came nowhere near ruiniating my outfit when I wore them yesterday at the park. The Lonsdale sweatshirt too; despite its sporting origins it’s become a bit of an off-duty favourite now as well. Obviously after you remove the ‘[email protected]’ label sewn into the side but hey, I’ve survived far worse.

Is Sports Direct the future of menswear shopping in Britain?

Fuck no. It’s aggressive.

Loud. Hostile. There’s no service to speak of.

The lighting is meant to intimidate you. You will struggle to find a single item that looks even remotely appealing compared to everything else around it. It’s an utterly joyless experience.

Except when you find that shirt. That bomber. That jumper.

That reminds you just how good – and accessible – the classics still are.