High school, with its thorns and fickle theocracy based upon the ever-changing altar of Cool, never quite canonised the table tennis club. You see, they were a little different to the rest; football stars that never quite made academy ('that hamstring injury mate, yeah, finished me off man') and the cross country runners that marked the end of their sporting pursuits upon the discovery of Windsor Blues. Because those athletes looked like athletes: the sort baked into the side of Olympian pottery, and thus etched into the human psyche with each quarter-decade beneath the hallowed, multi-coloured rings. The table tennis club, with their hawk eyes and nimble frames, weren't quite the swollen juggernauts classical history so liked to lionise.
Look, it just wasn't cool. And that's OK. In my elder years, I wish my teenage self wasn't so slavish to the whims and trends set by other miserable, power-crazed teenage bodies. I'd have quite liked to take up table tennis. I'd liked to have told people that I loved Final Fantasy, and liked hanging out with my grandma. Alas. The pains and pangs of puberty.
At least now, in 2020, there's a penance of sorts. Cue Li-Ning. A monolithic sporting goods brand based out of Beijing, the brainchild of a former Olympic gymnast (also called Li Ning) posted revenues of almost £1.2 billion in 2019 thanks to a mixed gym bag of functional kit and futuristic sportswear. So why haven't you heard of it yet? Well, there was no real Li-Ning footprint in the Western world; nowhere we could buy, no advertising space bought up by the sprawling Chinese label. But that's changing. As the more left-field of its trainers sneak into retailers like Browns and End Clothing, we're slowly learning why Li-Ning proves so popular in its home country – and how it's pulled table tennis along into the wider menswear conversation.
In the latest seasonal drop for S/S '20 titled 'On Ping Pong', we were treated to the sort of apparel that's a direct counter to the muted 'health goths' of 2014 (Christ, remember that?) This stuff is fun, and bright, and youthful: Wes Andersonesque, just without the chintz, and in the middle of a phys ed class in the graphic novel high schools of Daniel Clowes's Ghost World. The collection – a mixture of accessories, track suits and sneakers – does not dilute its root source in any way, either. 'Paperweight' anoraks boldly espouse the good gospel of table tennis, while sweatshirts are heavily branded with CCPPDR: shorthand for Li-Ning's central Chinese alliance for ping pong diplomatic relations.
Because in the brand's homeland, table tennis isn't just a 10-minute time filler for drunken Essex transplants at Shoreditch House on a Friday. Nor are its stars relegated to an empty classroom at lunchtime. It's a serious sport to the tune of 53 Olympic medals, and one that requires reverence, training, discipline, respect, and of course, very, very good sportswear.
Table tennis: not cool said your inner teenager. And yet Li-Ning has proved otherwise, winning the menswear game, set and match without playing by our dated rules. The Revenge Of The Nerds continues – and I couldn't be happier about it.
Li-Ning's S/S '20 collection available online at Farfetch now
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