Self-Defining Triathlon Femininity?

Abstract

Women's triathlon clothing designer Kristin Mayer established Betty Designs in 2010. Through the brand, Mayer created a visual embodiment of a self-defined sporting femininity that evoked strength and beauty. Mayer's personal struggle to define and defend a gendered aesthetic for women triathletes is at the heart of an oral history recorded for the Women in Triathlon History Project in 2019. A close reading of the Mayer oral history reveals a combination of rehearsed origin scripts, resistance, and discomposure. Considered together, the narrative and performative elements of the oral history raise the possibility of critical agency in female sporting apparel design and also demonstrate that competing feminisms and notions of empowerment combined to contest, shape, and reshape triathlon aesthetics. More broadly, the Mayer oral history reveals the extent to which oral testimonies reflect, negotiate, and craft versions of the pasts in active contributions to present and future discourse.