Clare Balding, BBC presenter, has said in the Radio Times that, ‘Female faces will dominate the British medal haul in 2012’ in reference to the London Olympics. Balding pointed out that women’s ability to take part in codified competitive sport is nearly 900 years behind that of men, but that women are likely to lead the medal tables for Britain.

The impact of sport on wider society is easily seen through sports clothing: the hoody, once the preserve of boxers, the rugby shirt and polo shirt and jogging bottoms or trackies, worn originally by track athletes, have all become part of mainstream casual clothing.

This new freedom to play sport and wear sporting clothing has given many women a new freedom to invest in their bodies as competitive instruments and that has led to a change in their approach to clothing. Many more women now wear what is called Sports Luxe and it is a key feature of the West Coast Cooler Fashion Week in Belfast. Sports Luxe is clothing with a dual purpose: looking good and feeling good in times of activity. Designers such as Marc Jacobs, Hugo Boss and Philip Lim have made this particular style their own by using rich colours and unusual fabrics: plum coloured jogging pants or tuxedo shirts that wick away sweat, for example.

For those who can’t afford designer clothing a stylish women’s polo shirt worn with jeans or jeggings and a pashmina, or casual trousers or leggings teamed with a cashmere top and designer trainers both work as Sports Luxe statements.

A-list actors took to the catwalk for Prada’s menswear show this week. Gary Oldman, was the show closer (and show stealer) but Adrien Brody, Jamie Bell and Willem Defoe also got up and dressed up for the catwalk show.

It opened with an outfit that will define the autumn look – a black coat (think Sherlock Holmes – Cumberbatch, style) worn with a white shirt and under that, a lightweight white polo-neck in silk. Lots of suit jackets, sharp tailoring and masculine detail were evident and key colours were black, white and red.

If you can’t see yourself, or the man in your life, wearing a white silk polo necked sweater under a shirt, consider going for a fitted white polo-shirt with a lightweight white T-shirt underneath. Same look, one notch down in power dressing.

But power really was the theme and high collars – even popped collars on polo-shirts and modern tailoring were very evident. Suit style jackets were often double-breasted and worn with badges or studs to make them less formal.

A recent report by Bain & Co claims that luxury menswear is currently the fastest-growing area of the clothing market with double the growth rate of luxury women’s wear and the trend towards evening dressing is set to continue. Cashmere scarves and monogrammed shirts are keynotes for everyday dressing in the year ahead.

Two nations divided by a common language – and by clothing. As part of our New Year’s Resolutions many of us decide to smarten up and Esquire had a clothing guide for men that made us laugh, cheer and scratch our heads.

Some of the items on their list we had no argument with:

7. A rugby shirt is the most masculine thing a man can wear.

For sure. And a rugby shirt is always acceptable socially.

And then there’s:

22. Always tuck: polo and dress shirts that hang below your hip. Never tuck: sweaters and turtlenecks. Everything else is negotiable.

Really? I don’t see many British men tucking in their polo shirts these days – and do you know what? I wouldn’t want to. It’s a shirt that’s made to drape, at least in this nation’s eyes, and drape is what we let it do.

Of course the Americans have Texas to contend with, and it comes up more than once on their clothing list – so a ten gallon hat and cowboy boots are okay, but a hoodie is only acceptable occasionally? Somebody should tell those boys William and Harry – you know the ones, the heirs to the British throne … the ones who actually play polo, not just wear the shirts?

So maybe the rules are slightly different depending on your accent, but the basic guideline is the same – high fashion only works if you really work it, and most of us don’t have the budget or the body. Stick to the classics, buy good casual clothing and keep it clean and neat and you’ll get by.

In the past year, Indian shoppers have got into buying clothing online in a big way. The division by gender is around 70% male to 30% female, with retailers focusing on social media to reach out to women who are a growth market for all forms of retail in India. Global clothing companies are rushing to get into this market, especially to bring their retail expertise to many customers who live in small towns, villages and the hamlets or rural India.

Casual apparel has the second highest seller online in India: ahead of books and DVDs. India’s ‘internet population’ has moved into e-commerce with ease: the nation has around 10 million online shoppers, a market that is growing at 40-45%, compared to the global rate of around 8-10% growth. eBay India retails a garment every seven minutes – many of which are sports shoes and clothing with Adidas and Reebok featuring highly in the popularity stakes.

Children’s wear is also a rapidly growing market with Indian mums investing in clothes and shoes, along with feeding bottles, buggies and toys. Menswear is growing too:one company that sells work shirts at under 900 rupees each has sold 2,500 shirts since it launched in August and is expecting to sell 5,000 collared shirts a month in 2012.

Personalised workout clothing is a big seller, with monogrammed hoodies and polo-shirts being a regular purchase by individuals and as presents or to commemorate work events such as promotions or anniversaries, which are popular celebrations in Indian culture.

Budgeting for clothes is difficult: one person may feel it’s worth spending half their income on new garments, another may think that less than 10% of their take-home money should go on clothing. For some people it’s important to have a lot of clothes and always look in fashion – if you work in retail or the media, for example, it’s really vital to look like you have a fashion pulse! For a geek, a classic wardrobe of jeans, T-shirts and a polo-shirt for visits to grandparents may be the entire outlay … and that’s cool too.

What’s important is that clothing be durable, comfortable and pleasant. That means pleasant to wear and pleasant for those who see you wearing it: saggy, baggy, stained and smelly are not pleasant, so clothes that lose shape, hold stains and odours or are too expensive or complicated to launder really don’t fit with a limited budget. Cotton clothing, whether in the form of smart collared shirts or simple plain T-shirts, is an ideal choice.

Cotton garments are easy to wear and always easy to wash and dry – whether you’re a fashionista who presses everything with starch or a casual dude who simply takes stuff off the line or airer and wears it, creases and all.

Cotton clothes are also very versatile. Shirts can be teamed with contrasting T-shirts to get a wider range of clothing choices and hoodies can be worn over T-shirts to give a soft, relaxed feel.

Hollister has become synonymous with twilight retailing: and teenagers seem to love buying casual clothing in such dark conditions that they don’t actually know what colour their new garments are until they’ve got them out of the store. According to the Daily Mail, parents are complaining about not being able to see the true colour or the price of what they’re buying, and even of losing track of their teenagers in the store.

The ‘greeters’ whose six packs are on display even if there is snow on the ground are also viewed with suspicion by some parents who feel they are tacky or maybe even that the young men are being exploited.

Even so, the Hollister experience seems to be a popular one, so what can parents learn from it about teenagers and shopping?

1. Casual clothing needs special focus – because teenagers spend most of their time in jeans, joggers, hoodies and trainers, these, not party outfits, are the focus of their attention, and the party atmosphere of Hollister can make them feel they are getting more for their money. To get your teen to shop in less expensive outlets, or even online, arrange for one of their friends to come round, let them play loud music and lay on pizza, snacks and multi-player gaming in between bouts of online clothing browsing. This makes them much more likely to engage with the idea
2. Colours matter – Hollister are coy about the number of returns they receive but it does seem to be the one part of the shopping process that disconcerts teens. Point out that online shopping allows teens to look at all the colours, sizes and options, to do comparison shopping and even to google potential purchases and see reviews on their wearability. This encourages a picky shopper to realise that they can spend as long as they like debating a black T-shirt versus a red one, online but in the shop it gets annoying to family and friends!
3. Feed the senses – Hollister spray perfume around their shop and on their customers to make the experience memorable. Do the same for your teen shoppers by squirting the room with their body spray before they start shopping – believe it or not, psychologists say that a favourite scent can  prejudice us in favour of an experience by up to 46%.

A new study in the peer-reviewed Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE suggests that our perception of clothing may actually influence our judgements about race.

The study required participants to classify each image that appeared on a screen as being either a black or white person, but the images were randomly computer assigned clothing that was either considered to have low social status (a caretaker’s uniform or jog pants) or  something high status such as a business suit or formal shirt.

Interestingly, most participants were heavily influenced by the clothing worn by the computer generated image, and clothing stereotypes literally altered the way they saw people – the ethnic race of each face was deliberately ambiguous so the participants relied on clothing cues and many decided that people in high-status clothing were white, regardless of the ambiguity of the face. While the results of the study challenge a widely held belief that perception of race is a simple judgment, based purely on a person’s facial features, there is also fascinating information about how clothing influences the judgements that we make about individuals.

As an example, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported that Steve Jobs once thought about getting all Apple staff to wear a uniform like Japanese companies do. Despite being persuaded against this by the almost universal rejection of his idea by his workforce, he went on to establish a personal ‘uniform’ of jeans and black turtleneck sweater which has gone on to become an industry standard with around 70% of IT people adopting the dress code of chinos and polo-shirt. The new CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, is fitting right in by wearing dark-collared polo shirts for the cameras, making clear his identification as a ‘geek’ rather than an ‘exec’ which allows Silicon Valley to embrace him as Jobs’ successor.

A recent show at Imperial College, London offered vanishing dresses (using a blend of polymers that dissolve when exposed to H2O), hoodies that actually clean the air as you walk through it, thus leaving the street cleaner than when you found it, and special underwear that makes you fitter.

Within five years we may see full-body compression underwear that allows even ordinary gym goers to run faster, lift more and punch more strongly. Also on the cards is a sports bra that shapes itself to the wearer, and most interestingly to many women, ‘clever’ undies that use the body’s own heat to generate tiny electrical pulses that activate the muscles so that you become slimmer the more you wear the garment. This technology could also be used in socks to help frequent flyers and those who stand all day, by returning blood to the upper parts of the body, thus reducing the risk of clots, thrombosis and varicose veins.

Photo-catalytic clothing is already being tested. It involves cotton clothing treated with a chemical layer that reacts with light to break up water in the air and create radical molecules that neutralise pollution – fitted into the jogging bottoms of running groups or the jackets of street workers this layer could actually make our cities cleaner and safer at no cost to us.

England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson may be the only bright note on the current England squad. Not only is his behaviour impeccable, his clothing has become a focus of attention too: he’s working with his brother to create a fashion brand that combines sports clothing with smart casual elements.

The line is called Fineside and is particularly designed to work with the mesomorph body type that the Wilkinson brothers typify: large boned and well-muscled with a low waist and chunky legs. This body type generally looks good in casual clothing as long as it’s not too tight-fitting. Polo-shirts and tops with a back pleat work well for men, and for women, wearing a hoody with a zip front can help give a defined shape to the larger-boned woman.

Casual clothing also works well with the modern lifestyle that moves from office to gym to bar via a commute and maybe a noodle lunch. Picking clothing with flat seams that’s crease-resistant and can be dressed up or down quickly is a great way to making the urban active lifestyle more streamlined.

If you think you’re one of those who looks fantastic in sportswear, JD Sports may be looking for you. They are searching out “real people with real style” to replace their usual models for their next promotional campaign. Using Facebook and an app that allows people to log in, enter themselves, or friends in the contest, and vote on the winners, they will choose a top twenty potential models, who will be whittled down to the final eight winners.

To look good in sports clothing, it’s important to wear items that are properly weather-appropriate. Clothing should keep you warm, but not trap sweat, allow you to move freely and – to look really good – be in colours and styles that make the most of your features.

Consider the winter sports look by layering. A bright-coloured polo-shirt looks great worn under a fleece and allows good arm muscles to be revealed without the goose bumps marring the appearance of the would-be model. Pink, orange and bright green are good colours to wear, although if you have an excellent tan and good teeth, a pure white polo-shirt or T-shirt may give an impression of extra health.

For women, wearing long shorts with trainers is a good move, as this is considered to be one of the hot looks for 2012, so showing how well you can work the look may move you into the shortlisted twenty.