When leggings and sneakers are the style uniform, it feels like peak ‘athleisure’
Leggings from Lucas Hugh sell at Bergdorf Goodman, the luxury department store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, for as much as $400. The colorful pants offer a host of technical properties, including heat-sealed seams, extra lining, a high waistband and reflective detailing, should someone want to wear them for a nighttime run.
They also look cute with a blazer.
“I know it sounds crazy, but you can style a full look around these leggings,” says April Hennig, Bergdorf’s vice president of women’s contemporary. “They really are acceptable in multiple end uses.”
It is a big moment for “athleisure,” the apparel industry’s term for the casual, athletic-inspired way of dressing rooted in leggings, tank tops and sneakers. Athleisure promises a whole day’s wear from a single outfit, taking women from spin class to the coffee shop to the office and then out for a cocktail at happy hour.
“This has become a new uniform,” says Brooke Jaffe, fashion director of women’s ready-to-wear at Bloomingdale’s.
This wear-anywhere sports-influenced clothing is the rare trend that bubbled up from the mass market to the high end, instead of the other way around. A Specialty-chain popularized the idea of wearing yoga pants in non-yoga settings. And other specialty chains have been quick to replicate the look. And the designer world made it stylish, with sneakers and sweatshirts seen on the runways.
A big reason athleisure is colonizing stores is that the clothes are comfortable, with form-controlling fit on many core styles. Brands at all price points have something to offer, from traditional athletic names to specialty chains to high fashion labels, along with a laundry list of new entrants.
And while the fashion-trend pendulum will undoubtedly swing back in favor of high heels before too long, many retailers are predicting athleisure clothes are in stores to stay, as everyday fitness (see: spin classes and green juice) and wearable tech (Apple Watch, anyone?) become mainstream.
Department stores now are making room for the category, including luxury players. “Everybody wants a piece of it,” says Bergdorf’s Ms. Hennig. “We don’t see this as just a trend.”
The challenge for luxury stores is to sell to a wide swath of customers, as an add-on purchase instead of replacing another purchase. Ms. Hennig says she is on the hunt for distinctive merchandise. “We’re not going to go after the athletic brands that are sold in every sporting goods store in America,” she says. The Lucas Hugh leggings, she says, “worked really well. They felt unique. They felt high fashion.”
Anjhe Mules, founder and creative director of London-based Lucas Hugh, says she didn’t set out to price the brand so high, but customers have been willing to pay. “They use it as an alternative to their jeans with a little bit more purpose,” she says. “It suddenly justified the price.”
Do shoppers buy athleisure products more for sport or style? Don’t overthink it, Ms. Rutson suggests. “Two years ago, you didn’t see people walking around in workout gear if they weren’t coming to or from a gym,” she says. “Nowadays you do.”
Athleisure offers the apparel industry growth in a competitive environment. U.S. sales of sportswear, including performance, outdoor and “sports-inspired” clothing and shoes, advanced 7.8% to almost $91 billion last year, and 27% ahead of 2007, according to market-research firm Euromonitor International.
At Lord & Taylor, sales of sportswear have doubled in the past year and sneakers sales have tripled, says MaryAnne Morin, chief merchant at Lord & Taylor and its sister brand, Hudson’s Bay. Ms. Morin predicts athleisure will grow to 10 times where it is today before hitting its peak. “There’s a lot of runway ahead of us,” she says.
Department stores are after the full range of potential athleisure shoppers. At one end of the spectrum are style-seekers. Jane Hall, a 23-year-old product marketing manager in San Francisco, says she rarely works out and instead wears her cobalt-blue sports bra as a crop top underneath overalls.
Then there are fitness fanatics like New Yorker Taryn Toomey,founder of “the Class,” a boutique fitness program, who works out five times a week. Preferring the term “convertible dressing” to athleisure, she layers non-workout clothing over her tank tops and neutral-colored leggings. Her go-to pieces are a long cardigan, a delicate necklace and Isabel Marant booties.
“We don’t dictate how and when our customer should wear it,” saysRed Godfrey, vice president of the fashion office at Nordstrom, of the department store’s athleisure offerings. “Our customers may have an extremely active lifestyle or just a very busy schedule.”
TomKalenderian executive vice president at Barneys sees this aesthetic sticking around for a while, if for no other reason than it is incredibly comfortable. “You’ve spoiled the customer to say that it’s OK to wear a pair of cashmere sweatpants, a cool blazer and a pair of designer sneakers,” he says. “He may not go back to a pair of grey flannel pants.”
Adapted from http://www.wsj.com/articles/are-you-going-to-the-gym-or-do-you-just-dress-that-way-1430847310