The new uniform- 'Athleisure'

Millie Fisher
Oct 20, 2017
2 min read

Over the next few weeks my group will be looking into the trend ‘Active,’ for a university project. In doing so, we have to create three mood boards on active history, active shops and active street style. We decided to interpret the trend in a modern way and focus mostly on ‘Athleisure’. We have also decided to look at how active wear was worn in the past and how it has been brought back in a contemporary way.

Firstly, what is athleisure? Athleisure comprises of both athletic wear combined with leisure wear. It fuses sportswear with street wear. This trend is continuously growing and in this day and age you can expect to see more and more people tapped into the athleisure trend, even if they haven’t worked out. Women are often seen sporting the trend as everyday, social wear- when out shopping, on the school run, or even in the evening by dressing it up with some heels.

In 2014 the trend ‘athleisure’ was seen as flippant by different journalists for various magazines. It was considered as a made up term, that was most likely ridiculous. However, the trend has since proved them wrong with high growth in sales and collaborations with celebrities and high end designers.

Celebrity collaborations have been vital in athleisure industry, hurling the trend to a consumer ‘must have’. Celebs such as Beyoncé collaborating with Topshop for the Ivy Park collection, has been majorly influential in the athleisure market. Beyoncé collaborated with Sir Phillip Green (the owner of Topshop’s Fashion chain) to release a collection of leggings, t-shirts, jackets, crop tops, sliders, bags and more. This is just one of many significant celebrities that have joined forces with sportswear to create a popular partnership.

Rihanna also partnered up with Puma back in 2015 to create Fenty- which was a complete sell out. Rihanna designed sliders and sneakers which was designed to connect Puma to female consumers. The brand then extended and brought out athleisure clothing as well as a huge runway collection which absolutely slayed.

Its hard to say where athleisure originates from but its clear it is also an important part of history too. Jane Fonda was the original person in the 80’s who began creating fitness videos. Before athleisure was perceived as an actual trend, Jane Fonda’s famous workout tape shows athleisure vibes. In the late 90’s Lululemon brought our yoga apparel which famously hit street style, and from their brands followed on- driving down denim sales and showing an increase in active wear. A more recent company who sports athleisure is fabletics, who also have a collaboration with Demi Lovato.

All i know is that i am loving this trend and so are some of my favourite celebrities. Gigi and Bella Hadid are owning it with their athleisure street style. They love it, but do you?