In a world moving from one polycrisis to another, where technology and nature occasionally show their unpredictability, Nu-Romantic Sport offers a small but meaningful pleasure: the ability to move quickly through the city while remaining delicately adorned, jumping from puddle to puddle and train to train in garments that balance comfort, nuance and expressive detail.
Puma Speedcat Ballet / New Balance x Rosalia / Cecilie Bahnsen fw26 / Simone Rocha x adidas
As we move through cities shaped by constant motion, athletic garments are beginning to absorb an unexpected language of ornament. Across runways, collaborations and street style, sportswear is being reshaped through volume, lace, bows and sculptural detailing. The result is a hybrid aesthetic where technical performance coexists with a renewed expression of femininity. Part of this shift draws on the disciplined lightness of balletcore, which brings ribbons and wrap silhouettes into everyday dress, while coquette aesthetics revive lace, bows and forms of ornament rooted in historic sartorial codes of femininity from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Gorpcore contributes the technical pragmatism of outdoor gear, and athleisure provides the underlying framework, normalising athletic garments as everyday uniforms and allowing these decorative gestures to enter the vocabulary of sportswear.
From Stereo Pulse, an editorial published on VEIN Digital
This shift became particularly visible with the recent collaboration between Simone Rocha and adidas Originals. Presented during London Fashion Week, the project reimagined classic sportswear through Rocha’s signature language of embellishment and volume. Track jackets appeared with pearl embroidery and puffed sleeves, sports bloomers were finished with frills, and ballerina-like sneakers incorporated bow lacing and crystal accents.
Simone Rocha x adidas
A similar gesture can be observed in the recent launch of Rosalía’s collaboration with New Balance. The Sea Salt 204L introduces scalloped detailing and ribbon laces that soften the streamlined silhouette of the sneaker while preserving its technical construction.
New Balance x Rosalía
This direction did not appear overnight. Sandy Liang had already begun exploring a related tension between romantic detailing and athletic styling in earlier collections. In Spring/Summer 2022, the New York designer combined sporty shorts and cropped tanks with eyelet fabrics, lace trims and scalloped hems, styling the looks with technical sneakers through her collaboration with Salomon.
Sandy Liang ss22
Trend forecasters have also identified similar shifts. WGSN’s concept of New Romanticism signals a return of historical drama, volume and decorative craft in contemporary dress, while Days of Club explores the feminisation of athletic uniforms through lace trims, ruffles and playful reinterpretations of sports silhouettes. In both cases, performance garments remain central, but their visual language expands to accommodate ornament, softness and expressive detail.
A product example that illustrates how this aesthetic is already translating into the market can be seen in recent footwear releases that reinterpret performance silhouettes through softer, dance-inspired forms. Puma’s Speedcat Ballet transforms the brand’s iconic motorsport shoe into a ballet-flat hybrid, replacing traditional lacing with elastic straps while maintaining the ultra-slim racing sole that defined the original design.
In a similar vein, adidas Originals × CLOT by Caroline Hú revisits the Taekwondo sneaker through a delicate, movement-focused lens. Slim straps, a refined toe shape and subtle references to the Three Stripes preserve the martial-arts heritage of the silhouette while introducing a lighter, almost balletic sensibility. Together, these models illustrate how performance footwear is being reshaped through the language of dance, elegance and controlled ornament, pointing to the growing presence of the “sneakerina” hybrid within contemporary sportswear.
Cecilie Bahnsen’s Fall/Winter 2026 collection, Practice, also reflects this evolution of New Romantic codes. Presented in a rehearsal-like setting with dancers wearing the garments in motion, the collection combined Bahnsen’s sculptural volumes in tulle and organza with elements drawn from rehearsal wear and outdoor gear. The result balanced romantic lightness with technical structure and movement, in line with other recent collections where Bahnsen has explored similar intersections between femininity and performance, including her collaborations with The North Face or Asics.
Cecilie Bahnsen – fw26
As sportswear continues to shape everyday wardrobes, its visual language expands beyond performance into a territory where movement and ornament coexist. What once belonged to separate worlds increasingly meets in the same garment: sneakers with ribbons, technical fabrics softened by lace, athletic silhouettes reimagined through volume and detail. In this landscape, Nu-Romantic Sport begins to resemble a uniform for the apocalypses yet to come, practical and comfortable enough to keep moving, and expressive, detailed and playful enough to enjoy the ride.
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