Lifestyles

David Beckham poses in Armani underwear, flexing his perfect abs. Bare-chested Thierry Henry models for Tommy Hilfiger. French rugby players lounge naked. And body odor wafts through the rooms.

Literally.

A bio-engineered smell of sweat is regularly pumped through the exhibition's final section to give a sense of the human body among the mannequins. Until I found out, I assumed my fellow visitors were a particularly stinky bunch.

Welcome to "Fashion V Sport" at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, a look at the interaction between fashion and sport and how they feed off each other in clothing design.

With sections named "Desire," "Dare," "Display" and "Play," this is fundamentally a standard mannequin show, and the curating is by no means breathtaking. It has many small, ill-lit and awkwardly placed labels. Some read more like gushing public-relations blurbs than critical appraisals.

"Yasuhiro Mihara's design philosophy is based on the idea of breaking through boundaries. He designs with the intent of changing our perceptions and stereotypes," burbles one tag next to a training shoe covered in fake chocolate.

Still, there are some wonderfully kooky items. A floppy gray elephant head is attached to a cotton sweatshirt in Aitor Throup's 2006 outfit, "When Football Hooligans Became Hindu Gods." Cropped track-suit bottoms are attached to a bright green tutu in an eye-popping Christian Dior number from 2003.

The exhibition shows that ideas don't just flow one way from the track to the catwalk, that functional sportswear has become more fashionable, too. A baggy autumnal-gold running jacket by Stella McCartney looks practical as well as modish.

Also on display is a full-body Speedo swimming outfit as worn by U.S. Olympic superstar Michael Phelps. Made out of the new, ultra-high-tech material LZR Pulse, it bears a fetching design by Comme des Garcons.

Other labels represented include Vivienne Westwood, Yohji Yamamoto, Puma, Nike, Chanel and Paul Smith.

The "Desire" section promises more than it delivers. Photos of sports stars are titillatingly placed behind peep-show holes "to reveal their true character."

It makes them awkward to look at, and I'd hazard a guess that their "true character" was already evident to most. What's not to get in a near-naked picture of Italian footballers wearing Dolce & Gabbana underwear?

There's still some fun to be had, and I'm now clear about how to get perfect abs and look stylish: Do 200 situps a day for at least a year, then wear a skimpy Armani thong. It seems to work for David Beckham.

"Fashion V Sport" is at the Victoria and Albert Museum until Jan. 4.

Details: www.vam.ac.uk or +44-870-906-3883.

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