By Clinton Duncan

ATHLEISURE is a trend in fashion in which clothing designed for workouts and other athletic activities is worn in other settings, such as in the workplace, at school, or at other casual or social occasions. Athleisure outfits include several essential pieces like yoga pants, tights and leggings that “look like athletic wear” and are characterised 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, which for a couch potato like me makes absolute sense. I mean, who doesn’t want to be able to go from the gym to the movies without having to make a one-hour outfit change?

However, financial gurus around the world have started to ask whether the prosperous athleisure trend is on its last run around the track.
Recently, retail analysts have been dissecting the revenues of various sporting-goods stores and athleisure makers whose fortunes have risen with the tsunami wave of growth in everything that comes in stretchy fabric. And some are starting to sound the alarm that the athleisure trend is nearing its end.

After Dick’s Sporting Goods reported its same-store sales were up a weak 0.1 percent in the second quarter, retail analysts blamed slowing athleisure sales as one culprit contributing to the fall-off.

That analysis was loudly voiced by John Zolidis, President of Quo Vadis Capital, who blamed Dick’s lacklustre results on dipping athleisure sales. “The largest issue, in our opinion, is the end of the fashion athletic trends, or ‘athleisure’ as it has been called,” he wrote in a report. “This is an industry-wide trend.”

We can trace the birth of the athleisure trend back to the early Noughties when Neil Barrett became one of the first high-end designers to team up with a sportswear brand. Made in collaboration with Puma, the 96 Hours collection dropped in 2003 in the form of a fashion-leisure line, designed with technical elements that made garments both functional and adaptable for any eventuality. Inspired by the fact that people were starting to want more out of their clothes, Barrett was motivated to make versatile pieces that would work with consumers’ busy lives, helping them make the transition from home to commute to work to meetings to drinks and so on with ease.

The year 2003 was also the same year that saw the birth of the Y-3 label (Yohji Yamamoto x Adidas), which shows at Paris Fashion Week each season, while the following year, the hugely popular Stella McCartney for Adidas range was launched.

Today, athleisure-inspired collections are much more commonplace, partly fuelled by sportswear giants like Nike catching onto the trend and making athletic looks more fashionable. Directional colours, fabrications and slim-fit shapes have been introduced to Nike sports shoes, making them more acceptable to wear outside of the gym.

Other key athleisure collections have included Puma by Rihanna (My absolute fave!), NikeLab and Sacai and Alexander Wang and H&M, while Adidas regularly collaborates with influential fashion designers like Raf Simons, Rick Owens, Jeremy Scott and Mary Katrantzou. Recently, Beyoncé even teamed up with high street brand Topshop on a brand new – and permanent – athleisure label, named Parkwood Topshop Athletic, which has been selling like hotcakes since its initial release. So, this now begs the question, is the athleisure trend on its last lap around the fashion circuit? Or, will it find a way to reinvent itself to balance the needs of the consumer with the needs of the profitable business model? I guess we’ll just have to keep our eyes opened and follow closely in our breathable leggings and our fashionable printed sweater vests.