Wear Your Passion For Chess

How do you show your love of chess? Do you wear it? Chess fashion can promote your image and make events more spectacular and stylish. How do you dress like a winner?

Jennifer Shahade And Her Reti-To-Wear Jacket

Looking for something cool, unique, and different? Try a painted jacked with your own inspiration. WGM Jennifer Shahade has captured the chess fashion scene, perhaps forever, with her made-to-order, hand-painted jacket with the prominent endgame study by Richard Reti on the back.

Shahade shared a photo of the jacket on her social media on Sep. 1, 2002, when the opening ceremonies of the 2022 Sinquefield Cup were held in St. Louis. She tweeted: “I wanted the most beautiful position I could show…. I think the Reti is the best by that criteria.”

I wanted the most beautiful position I could show.
—Jennifer Shahade

Can’t find what you are looking for? Consider a business that adds creativity to its production process and is “passionate about fashion as a form of expression” as Shahade did. For her jacket, she turned to a clothing company that proclaims it is “bringing wearable art to the world.” After showing the starting position of the endgame study, the company prepared a sketch and then began painting her jacket after Shahade had given her approval.

The design that Shahade provided is the start of the classic Reti endgame study. In this study, White can play for a draw with only Kg7. Do you know the rest of the study? Click here to review it or complete the following puzzle to solve it.

The front of Shahade’s jacket is simple. Observers probably would not anticipate that a clever chess design is on the back.

Other Chess-Themed Fashion On The Scene

In contrast to Shahade’s jacket, socks are cool but not as impressive.

At the 2022 Chess Olympiad in Chennai, India, several more examples of chess fashion were on display.

Maybe the best mask with a chess theme worn during the coronavirus pandemic is the one that WGM Tatev Abrahamyan wore in St. Louis during the U.S. Women’s Championship in October 2021.

Not Exactly High Fashion

Perhaps women are more adventurous than men in using fashion as a form of expression and showing their passion for chess. (You can tell when IM Danny Rensch is dressing up — he's wearing a Chess.com T-shirt.)

Women Set A High Mark For Chess Fashion

Let’s shift back to better examples of chess fashion, such as these at the Women in Chess Conference in Prague in August.

Let’s also recognize how cleverly women have worn chess fashion in other ways as in these examples.

Fashion As Sophisticated As Chess

Fashion inspired by chess can be very sophisticated as demonstrated by PINNED!, a first-of-its-kind designer challenge, that led to an exhibition to celebrate the intersection of chess and fashion. During the winter of 2017-18, the World Chess Hall of Fame teamed with the Saint Louis Fashion Fund to challenge six young artists to design a chess ensemble and an avant-garde piece inspired by the game of chess. Read more about this challenge and the exhibition here. 

The PINNED! chess collection includes a Wai Ming dress inspired by the strength of the queen chess piece and its ability to roam freely in battle. The laser-cut outline details give an almost armor-like illusion yet maintain the wearer’s femininity. The dress won the People’s Choice Award when the exhibition opened.

Are you now more intrigued about the topic of how chess can inspire fashion? Watch as GM Cristian Chirila interviews the designer of the dress who explains how she used chess to inspire her work; later the two discuss clothing worn at chess tournaments.

Do you consider fashion a form of expression? Is this important for chess players? How often do you wear chess-inspired items? Please share your thoughts in a comment below.