In 2025, Vogue Business reported that fashion’s connection with sports is reaching new heights, with collaborations between brands and athletes extending beyond traditional arenas like tennis into emerging fields such as women’s rugby and padel.
But how would designers create apparel for disciplines where body proportions, movement patterns, and visual presentation differ so radically from the mainstream? That is precisely the kind of challenge Anna Petrovska, Ukrainian designer and member of the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC), and winner of multiple international creative festivals, has been tackling for more than a decade. As director of her own atelier and later a sewing production house, she developed methods that treat clothing not as ornament but as a tool — from competition bikinis for world-class athletes to stage costumes designed around movement itself.
The following explores how Anna’s inventive approaches turn clothing into a strategic tool for athletes and performers alike.
When Clothing Stops Being Decoration
Most of us still think of clothing as decoration — a matter of color, cut, and impression. On stage or in sport, though, the wrong garment does more than spoil the look. It can break the rhythm of a dance, restrict an athlete mid-pose, or even cause an accident. In these contexts, design moves from aesthetics to function: fabric becomes part of the performance itself.
This shift is at the heart of Anna Petrovska’s methodology. Drawing on principles of ergonomics and psychophysiology, she approaches stage costumes not as static forms but as extensions of the performer’s body. Instead of forcing movement into a fixed silhouette, her designs build in what she calls “reserves of freedom”, hidden allowances in the shoulders, waist, and knees that flex and release with motion. The effect is subtle yet decisive: performers can execute complex choreography without distraction, and audiences see only seamless movement. The reliability of her approach is proven in practice — for example, the children’s theatre costumes she created withstood more than twenty performances without fading or deformation, preserving both color saturation and a neat appearance throughout the run. She also created costumes for ensembles competing at the International Vocal Competition “Golden Voice” in Bulgaria, an event under the European Association of Folklore Festivals that brings together participants from multiple countries. In Ukraine, her work appeared at the vocal-choreographic competition “Sun, Joy, Beauty,” a national festival for young performers.
“It’s a principle anyone can relate to. Think of the last time a stiff seam or poorly placed zipper made you uncomfortable through a working day. On a stage or competition floor, that discomfort is magnified under pressure”, Anna explains. Her work shows that the details of design, like stretch, seam placement, or breathability, can be the difference between fighting against your clothes and forgetting them entirely.
Designing for Bodies in Transition
Few situations test the limits of clothing as much as competitive sport. In disciplines like fitness bikini, athletes enter a phase known as “drying” just weeks before competition. Their bodies change dramatically: muscle definition sharpens, waistlines narrow, and volume in areas like the chest decreases. A costume fitted in advance can suddenly sit awkwardly, making the athlete feel exposed or unbalanced on stage.
In fitness competitions, the costume is often the one element that cannot change while the body around it does. As Anna explains, “In the final weeks, waistlines can narrow by several centimeters, chest volume decreases due to reduced carbohydrate intake, and muscle relief becomes visibly sharper. A costume cut to early measurements can suddenly feel out of place, exposing rather than supporting the athlete.”
Anna resolves this tension by working not with static measurements but with predictions. She studies how proportions shift during the final training phase and then builds those expected changes directly into the cut. By the time the athlete steps on stage, the garment matches the transformed body with uncanny precision, allowing weeks of preparation to show without compromise. It is a logic she had already applied years earlier in her atelier: before releasing new collections, she would wear-test prototypes herself to see how fabrics behaved after weeks of use and repeated washes. In both contexts, the guiding idea was the same — clothing should adapt to change rather than fail under it.
“This way I learn which textiles lose saturation, which ones shrink, and which, like biflex or microfiber with lycra, stay elastic and bright even after heavy use. Only then do I trust them for costumes that must withstand real stage conditions,” Anna notes.
Athletes wearing bikinis designed by Anna have won top places at international competitions, and one of her designs even appeared at Miss World, representing Ukraine. Her creations have also led athletes to medals at Mr. Olympia (IFBB Pro League) and the Arnold Classic — the two largest bodybuilding championships in the world that set the professional standard for the sport. Among those who took the stage in her costumes and secured podium finishes are Inna Sochynska, Aleksandra Tarasova, and Nataliya Rogushenko. These outcomes show that details in construction can directly influence confidence and presentation on stage and sometimes the final score.
The principle reaches beyond sport. “Bodies are never static,” Anna observes. “They expand and contract with age, gain and lose weight, shift during pregnancy, or reshape themselves after illness and recovery. Even in everyday life, changes happen: a few centimeters lost or gained in the waist, posture changing from long hours at a desk, and muscle tone building with exercise. These transitions are normal, yet fashion often ignores them, insisting on fixed sizes and rigid silhouettes.”
Predictive tailoring could just as easily benefit maternity wear, children’s clothing, or apparel for rehabilitation, where rapid changes in body proportions are common. What Anna Petrovska proves in the demanding environment of competition is that clothing can adapt to the future, not just the present. And for the wearer, that foresight translates directly into confidence.
Confidence as the Real Outcome
On stage, even a minor flaw in a costume can draw more attention than the performance itself. To counter this, Anna developed the “plank of visual integrity” — a discreet internal detail built into competition bikinis. Invisible to the audience, it closes gaps between fabric and body that appear when athletes twist or turn, preserving a flawless silhouette. For the competitor, the effect is more than cosmetic. Knowing the garment will hold up in every pose allows her to concentrate fully on performance instead of distraction. It is not surprising that athletes in their bikinis have consistently achieved prize-winning results on international stages.
The same principle applies to stage costumes. Strategic placement of seams, optical use of fabric textures, and even the way crystals are arranged all influence how a performer is perceived under bright lights. To the viewer, it may seem like sparkle; in practice, it is visual architecture, designed to elongate lines, highlight movement, or rebalance proportions.
“Everyone has felt the difference between an outfit that makes them stand taller and one that makes them self-conscious,” Anna remarks. “That’s why design, at its best, isn’t only about surface beauty. It’s about creating the conditions for confidence that let the person, not the garment, take center stage.”
Beyond the stage, the same attention to structure shaped her mass-market collections. By unifying fabrics and standardizing specifications across styles, she cut fabric waste and streamlined purchasing. Combined with her adaptive mass-design method, which created a better fit for different body types, returns dropped by 11 percent and logistics processes accelerated by 20 percent. Limited-edition lines sold out entirely, proving that engineering thinking in fashion can improve customer trust while also delivering efficiency for the businesses she worked with.
As fashion crosses into new sporting arenas, the real question is not which disciplines designers will enter, but how they will meet the demands of movement and change. Anna’s work suggests one answer: treat design not as ornament but as engineering for confidence. It is a shift that reaches beyond the stage or the podium, inviting us to think of clothing as something that can adapt with us — and quietly help us perform at our best.
Presented by: DN NEWS DESK
