Athleisure: Tips to Take Your Gym Gear to the Streets
We're not going to lie: at first, the athleisure trend sounded a lot like an excuse to wear your Dorito smeared sweats to brunch, but now that the kinks have been worked out of the style and it’s more clearly defined, we're loving athleisure.
What's not to love?
You get increase the wearability of some of the most comfortable clothing in your wardrobe, bolstering your style relevancy while decreasing the cost per wear of your training garb, which can admittedly get a wee bit expensive. (Especially when you train as much as we do, amiright?)
However, like any style trend that involves blurring lines, it can be tricky to get a handle on how to rock athleisure without looking dishevelled or plain awkward. We’re here to help.
But first, let’s define athleisure for anyone who’s new to this yoga-pants party.
What is Athleisure?
Here's what Wikipedia has to say:
“Athleisure is a trend in fashion in which clothing designed for workouts and other athletic activities is worn in other settings, such as at the workplace, at school, or at other casual or social occasions. Athleisure outfits are yoga pants, tights, leggings and shorts, that "look like athletic wear" and are characterized as "fashionable, dressed up sweats and exercise clothing". The idea is that gym clothes are supposedly making their way out of the gym and becoming a larger part of people's everyday wardrobes.
Athleisure can be considered as a fashion industry movement, enabled by improved textile materials, which allow sportswear to be more versatile, comfortable, and fashionable.”
If you ignore the slightly judgy tone of the description (“supposedly”?!) and the exclusion of certain gear, you can accept this definition as basically correct. It’s about merging the world of sportswear and less formal clothing to emit a new breed of contempo-casual.
Tips for Sporting Athleisure
1. Master the basics. This is the same advice we’d give you for beginning just about anything, be it trying a new exercise move or new style. One of the most basic and still awesome athleisure looks is the tights or yoga pants, a basic tee, a jean jacket and a pair of sneakers or flats. Once you have this down-pat, you can move onto something a little more adventurous.
2. Take it to Work. Not all workplaces are going to embrace athleisure, but if you work in a more laid back work environment, you can definitely take on this trend -- at least on dress-down Friday. Ladies, try rocking a slouchy sweater with some jogger pants, or high-waisted skinny jeans with a flowy yoga top.
Guys, opt for a fitted pair of yoga pants and, and a V-neck sweater. Layer it up with a clean, classic tee underneath.
If this is too much, incorporate a few sporty details, like lacing, race strips or even just a quality sports watch.
3. Get Date Ready. Athleisure is also awesome for date night. Try an athletic dress with a pair of sneakers for a wonderfully relaxed (but still sexy!) alternative to the LBD. Throw in a few blinged out accessories, like bangles or a choker, and you’ve got a cool look.
Guys, try a baseball cap with a blazer, a fitted tee and some detailed lounge pants.
4. Keep it Contained. Here’s your final tip, and it applies to any incarnation of your athleisure wear. To qualify as athleisure and not just lazy, you have to incorporate more structure than just pure lounge wear. You need a piece to ebb the flow, like a blazer over a loose tee, or a pair of heeled strappy sandals to balance your slouchy yoga pants.
