Padel Has a Fashion Problem

Padel has changed fast.

The courts are different. The atmosphere is different. The people are different. Music, glass, cages, clubs, competition, drinks afterwards. There is an energy around padel that doesn't feel much like the traditional racket sports that came before it.

So why does so much of the clothing still look like it did?

Different logo. Different colour. Same safe sportswear.

We think padel deserves better.

Padel isn't tennis. So why are we dressing like it is?

There is nothing wrong with tennis. We quite like tennis.

But padel has developed its own culture, and the clothing should be allowed to do the same.

Of course performance matters. Padel clothing needs to be comfortable. It needs to move. Women's padel skirts need practical built-in shorts and pockets. Tops need to work when you're sweating. Men's padel clothing needs to survive an actual match rather than just looking good in a photograph.

But that's the starting point.

Not the entire design brief.

Somewhere along the way, sportswear became obsessed with being sensible.

We aren't.

Performance is the minimum. Personality is the interesting bit.

We didn't start Bad Padel because the world desperately needed another black sports top with a small logo on the chest.

We started it because padel is full of personality and we wanted the clothes to have some too.

Prints. Colour. Strange ideas. Limited designs. Padel skirts that don't apologise for being noticed. Polos, tops and outfits that can leave the court without screaming SPORTS KIT.

And we wanted to see what happened when real personalities were put inside them.

Which brings us to eight women, a red carpet and a padel court.

We had a plan. That didn't last long.

For our latest Bad Padel shoot, we brought together eight women.

Four wore our Padel Bad Girls collection. Four wore Ooh La La.

They weren't a line-up of professional fashion models who had spent years learning exactly where to put a hand, how to turn towards a camera or how to walk on cue.

That was rather the point.

We put a red carpet beside the padel courts. The idea was straightforward enough: walk towards the camera, show the outfits, give us some poses and let us capture the clothes properly.

And they did.

For a while.

Then the posing started disappearing.

Someone danced.

Someone else did something completely different.

The walks became less like walks. The women started playing to the camera, playing off each other, freestyling, laughing and generally abandoning whatever instructions they had been given.

And the shoot got better.

Much better.

Something changed when they stopped trying to model

You can actually see it happen in the footage.

At the beginning there is that little bit of awareness that a camera is pointing at you. Where do I stand? What am I supposed to do? Where do I look?

Then it goes.

The shoulders change. The walks change. The faces change.

The personalities arrive.

Eight women wearing the same two Bad Padel collections somehow manage to make them look completely different because they wear them differently.

And that, to us, is considerably more interesting than eight perfect poses.

It also got us thinking about something bigger.

What you wear matters more than we pretend

No padel skirt is going to improve your bandeja.

A polo isn't going to fix your backhand.

And wearing something outrageous won't suddenly make you the best player at the club.

But what you wear can change how you feel.

Everyone knows the feeling outside sport. There are clothes you put on and forget about, and there are clothes that somehow make you stand differently.

Why should padel be any different?

Confidence is difficult to measure. You won't find it listed next to moisture wicking or fabric weight in a product specification.

But watch eight people forget they're supposed to be posing for a camera and start enjoying what they're wearing, and you begin to wonder whether it should be.

Padel fashion should be allowed to have some fun

Padel is still young enough to decide what its culture looks like.

That's exciting.

There doesn't need to be one padel look.

Some people want understated. Some want ridiculous. Some want elegant. Some want savage. Some want a skirt and matching top. Some want a vest and shorts. Some want something they can play in at six and still be wearing at the bar at nine.

Good.

That's how it should be.

Padel clothing shouldn't become another uniform.

And perhaps that's the real fashion problem.

Not that there isn't enough padel clothing.

There is plenty.

There just isn't enough personality.

So we took ours somewhere else

The red carpet was only part of the shoot.

We took the clothes around the court. Against the glass. Away from the court. Into situations that had very little to do with a conventional sportswear campaign.

Some of it was planned.

A lot of the best stuff wasn't.

That's probably why we like it.

Over the next few weeks, Bad Mag is going behind the scenes of the whole shoot: the eight women, Ooh La La, Padel Bad Girls, the clothes, the footage, the moments that went completely off-script and what the whole thing made us think about confidence, fashion and where padel style goes next.

There will be plenty of photographs.

There will be video.

There may be some questionable behaviour against the glass.

Padel has enough instruction manuals.

We'd rather talk about where its personality went.