Ever feel like you are living in a bubble, completely behind the style times, hearing new words and phrases like Glamleisure uttered from perfect pouts, a new style language you don’t understand spoken in an online world of glamourous, fabulously fit beautiful people all swanning around the world staying in 5 star luxury and living in black leggings. And yet this very real illusion doesn’t match your reality and when you go out shopping all you can find is mass produced, badly made, ill fitting clothes that look nothing like this image of lifestyle perfection in cyber space? (click images for credits)
The truth is for the last 40 years sunny places around the globe have attracted people looking for a better quality of life who get up early, exercise regularly and appreciate being outside in the fresh air, welcome to Hollywood. These people needed stylish clothes that crossed over from performance/exercise to daily life. Move over Ready To Wear - the term Athleisure stills feels like its come from no where particularly in U.K. Believe it or not as far back as 1984 Prada set off the world’s press when they re purposed & used industrial tenting fabric to make what has now become the iconic red label Prada Sport, credited with being the very first big name brand to dip their toe into a lifestyle dressing concept that now has it’s own new name. (click images to shop)
In every big city around the world we have seen this life on the street styling explode, wherever you live look around you’ll see for yourself Athleisurewear is very much in the mainstream.
Crossing over this bridge and changing the way you dress is actually very simple with a few wardrobe tweaks but understanding the lingo is critical to knowing where you are going. Learning the language will help you gain confidence, not feel so out of date, out of touch or out of your mind and hopefully will start to make sense of this massive styling shift and bring you right up to date.
To help we’ve put together a glossary of the hottest styling hashtags to follow if you want to make your mark in the Athleisure Styling stakes. #athleisurewear What is Athleisurewear? Athleisurewear means anything that crosses over from active/performance clothing to casual everyday style and has sprung from a morphing of Athletic clothing with an out dated US Leisurewear concept, think about the “Leisure Suit” or “Cruise wear” to create an actual new word and dictionary definition listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
#activefashion Active Fashion is a phrase coined by US based Carbon 38 a pioneer in the curation of all our favourite brands in this space, many most will never have heard of when it comes to Athleisurewear. Sport brands have tried to add value to this space market by bringing together everything you need to create the perfect look but we haven’t found any performance brand crossing this space effectively. Carbon 38 one feed on instagram we really do recommend you follow for look for less inspiration. #carbon38 Carbon 38 is the website rumoured in Hollywood styling circles to be the Jenner sisters' favourite, Kylie Jenner has said she loves nothing more than athleisure styling, wearing leggings, a sweat top, sneakers and baseball cap and this is the very best place to find an array of amazing less well known fabulous brands you are not going to see anywhere else. (click images to shop)
#generationless Generation Less - Generation X ers born between 1960 and the late 1970's were credited with being disaffected, slackers and cynical but this new generation of healthy, outdoorsy, super stylish nature lovers care about the environment. They enjoy experiences and spending time outside doing more than shopping for a quick fix or buying something on an impulse that isn’t actually useful. The Generation Less are ethical consumers who think before they buy anything.
#slowfashion Slow fashion - we all know about Fast Fashion, slow fashion represents anybody/brand trying to reverse the negative impact on our environment caused by "cheap and quick" clothes. Slow fashion includes any thing purchased from a recycled source, second hand, from a consignment store, thrift store, yard sale, charity shop or swapping event. A recent study by Fourth of 2000 Brits polled, 90% said they were ethical consumers, the equivalent in the US is 56% according to Mintel - yet what we say and what we do often poles apart with 67% saying they boycott brands that don’t behave ethically. When American Apparel started their “Sweatshop Free” brand in 1989 it was a new dawn for the ethical consumer and slow fashion. In 2015 they were rescued from bankruptcy for 88 million dollars by Canadian Athleisurewear brand Gildan Activewear. On the other hand Primark (Penney’s in Ireland) estimated to be worth 19 billion by investment bank UBS, in 2005 snapped up C&A, Littlewoods and Woolworths and despite a recurring theme of questionable ethics exposed in the media and on TV, last year produced 7.1 billion in revenue. (click images to shop)
#positiveluxury Positive luxury - with disposable fashion contributing to the massive climate change problem we face and sadly the UK being the worst culprits, this hashtag is all about the best for less, less money, less damage, less waste, less exploitation, less greed (remember generation less) it includes anyone offering the best for less in every and anyway whether it be through recycling, sustainable manufacturing and giving back. Being a conscious ethical consumer means being open and curious always on the look out for people doing things right and then taking action supporting them, a must for every Hollywood celebrity stylist always looking to show their high profile clients the next BIG thing - LOOKING GOOD DOING GOOD.
Update 12th January, 2021
It's been almost three years to the day since Vogue described men's Fashion Month as #glamleisure as Bella Hadid's signature spandex and sparkle looks made it onto the guys catwalk. Glamleisure is not a hashtag we've seen reach significant heights yet (less than a thousand posts on Instagram today) although post corona virus we predict we'll see a resurgence of over the top glamour teamed with exercise clothing, luxury vintage pieces, statement designer jewellery teamed with leggings. Remember where you read it first.
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Photo by: Vitaly Sacred