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I think because Sport Lux has come in and leisure wear is a new thing, girls can sneak in hoodies and leggings and so on where they wouldn't normally - it has been proper legitimate fashion.

In terms of soccer, it wasn't really a thing that girls did. In England it more kind of Net Ball and Hockey and stuff like that in athletics. It's to each their own, really.

In recent generations, women's sports have been a blessing. Some of us can remember the bad old days in the '50s, when we would discover in casual schoolyard play that a girl could outrun most of us or hold her own in basketball or hit a softball - but there were no teams, no coaches, for girls.

When I first started designing sportswear, I felt that women weren't represented in sports performance. I felt that men were dressed really well both technically and visually, and women were almost like an afterthought.

When I was in school, there was no such thing as girls' athletics.

I grew up in Africa, in Nigeria. I never knew, I never had any reasonable encounter with football. I saw football on Sky News. I thought there were people dressed like extraterrestrials, you know, like they were going to Mars or something, headgears and shoulder pads. And I wondered why, as a child, why did they have to dress that way.

Women's sport helps break down a lot of barriers for women in other areas, whether in religion or politics.

In some countries, women aren't allowed to wear a swimsuit.

There's still prejudice and that resistance regarding women, not only on female football but in various activities. Men think that women are a bit fragile to perform some types of activities or don't have the ability and aren't strong enough.

Gender equality cannot be achieved by cutting programs that allow girls to get the same chance to compete, learn, and play. The United States has had a solid history of commitment to its female athletes and expanding opportunity for women, and it is imperative that we continue on this path.