The Antigua Group is one of the nation’s leading designers and marketers of genuine golf and sports apparel and wishes to extend its congratulations to the U.S. Solheim Cup Team on its performance in this past weekend’s event, which saw Team USA give its European opponents all they could handle before finally falling short, 15-13. ”Antigua is very proud to have been chosen to create the U.S.A. team uniforms for the 2011 Solheim Cup,” said Ron McPherson, president and CEO for Antigua. “These wonderfully talented women were wonderful and gracious to work with, and they made us all proud, even though the results obviously weren’t what they wanted.”
Antigua’s senior designer Danielle Dellios worked closely with U.S. team captain Rosie Jones, and assistant captains Sherri Steinhauser and Juli Inkster, to develop a beautiful collection of performance pieces that proudly portrayed the tradition of the American color palette as well as being tastefully embellished with stars and stripes befitting an American team’s design. each day of play was addressed as you would your own wardrobe – paying attention to the details of coordinating tops to bottoms in both style detail, silhouette, and color selection, which even working with the obvious red, white and navy palette still offered it’s challenges. Special emphasis was placed on keeping the pieces current – an axiom that follows with all of Antigua’s product development. “Designing uniforms for multiple days and multiple rounds of competition with Ireland’s unique weather as an added variable has been a tremendous challenge”, said Danielle Dellios, Senior Designer at the Antigua Group.
All pieces for both the practice rounds and the competition itself were custom created for the team uniforms. The tops are all made with Antigua’s proprietary Desert Dry and Desert dry Xtra-Lite performance fabrics designed for performance enhancement in any climate. These shirts are available for purchase and will truly stand out from all the others in your closet with the satiny feel of Antigua’s proprietary material. The bottoms are made in a light-weight poly/spandex stretch satin twill- designed for fluid movement, but in not trading function for style they were designed with a femininely flattering waist and hip, with tasteful pocket and trim details with a stylishly subtle leg flare. This same fabric is used in the design of the shorts and skorts but the weather was too cold.
Antigua created outerwear pieces for the team. There were base layer options of both crew or mock neck made in Desert Dry Xtra-Lite, and extra soft, microfleeced back jersey you saw the team wearing based on personal preference and weather conditions of each day. A classically traditional sweater vest was created as an additional layering option and is made of supple viscose/ nylon. Pullovers were created with soft and lightweight micro-fleeced back technical poly mid-weight jersey and a team jacket made in a lightweight poly/spandex 4 way stretch woven offering comfort, as well as both wind and moisture protection. Equally important to the incorporation of the technical functionality of these performance garments is that they never lose sight of critical style elements.
“Taking on the challenge of creating team uniforms for 12 of the top U.S. women golfers – along with their caddies, additional Solheim staff, the captain and assistant captains – was both an exhilarating and a humbling experience,” said Dellios. “To have been in the presence of these wonderfully talented women and to have them express their positive feedback, along with their genuine appreciation of our efforts, was overwhelming. It’s been a great experience.”
