High Fashion Hits the Fairway and Scores

There's a good reason that the terms birdie and eagle are part of the golf lexicon and the word peacock is not. "Let's be honest: golf clothing is pretty dorky," says Craig Tanner, CEO and founder of Urban Golf Gear (UGG), an "athleisure" apparel brand that combines performance technology with urban fashion flair. Tanner, who started the company in 1997, figured there would be a bigger audience for golf clothes when he saw Tiger Woods score a victory in just his third amateur tournament in 1996. "I knew he was going to go pro, and I knew golf was going to become cool, that rappers and rockers were going to get into it," he says. But Tanner also believes that to appeal to women, urban consumers and kids, "golf stuff cannot look like golf stuff." So his company created sexier golf styles like spaghetti-string tanks and baby Ts. He targeted the urban fashion market and Gen X kids with a logo that features his "UGG Man"--a black golfer with "dancing dreads." Soon celebs like Samuel L. Jackson and Justin Timberlake were wearing the stuff.

According to the National Golf Foundation, 2 out of every 3 new golfers are women. And according to NPD Group, a retail-trend tracking company, only 38% of women who buy golf apparel actually play in it. "Golf is more than just a practical sport now," says Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at the NPD Group. "People are buying golf clothes for multiuse, as a way to make casual clothing dressier." So it makes sense that fashion designers like John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld are also getting into the game with funky golf-apparel lines that are not just for the fairway. At Christian Dior, Galliano who has never picked up a club in his life has created a line of offbeat golf clothing and accessories, including a pink-and-yellow Argyle-patterned golf bag and matching knickers. Galliano has stressed that although all the Dior gear is performance quality, it's also meant to be worn on the street.

At Chanel, Lagerfeld is carrying on the athletic tradition that Coco Chanel began in the 1920s. The latest addition for spring is a golf line in the house's classic signature black and white. Soon, high fashion may just be par for the course.