Abstract. In recent historiography, there is a consensus that the modernizing reforms promoted in Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of the 20th century have changed the capital’s architecture and the relationship between its population and the urban experience, introducing new practices into daily lives of cariocas. Among them was the introduction of sports, with the press being the main vehicle for its dissemination. This article explores the presence of fashion dedicated to sports in chronicles and examines its contribution to the validation of a collective imagination about leisure. The literary representation of sportswear gains complexity in the “civilisation du journal”, in which social relations are regulated by the production and reading of magazines.