Why Stylish Sportswear is The New Trend

Sportswear, activewear, Sports Luxe, Athleisure — whatever you call it — you know it when you see it: stylish sportswear brands are taking over the fashion industry! Today, it is completely normal to see a baseball cap on the desk of your coworker, yoga pants at brunch or colorful cycling shorts on shoppers at the grocery store. Stylish sportswear is the new, modern uniform for those of the active, on-the-go mindset, or the go-getters who desire comfort, function and a casual style.

In this guide to stylish sportswear, you will discover:

• When and how sportswear became fashionable
• The activewear trends and sports that influenced the fashion industry
• Stylish sportswear brands to know

Athleisure: The New Trend

Athleisure, or the trend of wearing active sportswear in everyday life, began to rise in popularity around 2010, and continues to grow in popularity. The sportswear fashion trend has become the new uniform of the non-uniform. Sportswear is no longer restricted to the courts, but has rebelled against its original parameters and can be seen in just about any setting. Wherever you find yourself today, stop and take a look around: in each new environment you find yourself in (e.g. the grocery store, work, your kid’s school, etc.), you will be able to spot at least 1 item of trendy activewear (but probably much, much more!). Though it seems commonplace now, why and how has sportswear become the new trend?

There are 5 main reasons:

• Wearing fitness fashion is aspirational
• Cultural movements + urban adaptations + social change
• The innovation of fabrics + materials
• Comfort + functionality + casual style
• Sports’ + technology’s influence on the fashion industry

When did sportswear become fashionable?

Today, we don’t think twice when we see yoga pants populating our busy streets, sneakers in workplace settings or Fitbits on the wrists of our bosses, employees or customers, but this was not always the case. There was a time when fashion and beauty were relegated to women’s sphere of influence; however, media, technology and various sports brands began to alter the landscape of the fashion industry. Being able to wear comfy sweatpants, shoes that don’t hurt your feet and form-fitting tops of stretchy material is, after all, the ultimate luxury. Though this list is not exhaustive, the following activewear trends and sports movements heavily influenced the traditional fashion market and the modern cultural landscape.

Tracksuits, AKA Leisure Suits (Thank You Bruce Lee)

In the mid-1970s, Bruce Lee is credited with bringing into popular fashion the classic stretchy tracksuit. Though sportswear manufacturers began to create colored cotton and nylon jersey tracksuits in the 1960s, Bruce Lee made the style cool. When Lee wore his red two-piece tracksuit on his 1971 show, Longstreet, this was the first time this style showed up in popular culture on US television. According to his daughter, Shannon Lee, Bruce wore tracksuits all the time because he was always working out and he did not want any restrictions on his movements. Furthermore, he wanted his clothing to represent the simplicity, directness and freedom of his martial art.

Suddenly, athletic tracksuits in polyester, cotton, terry cloth and velour, and in blues, reds, greys and yellows were manufactured for purposes other than sports. You no longer had to be sporty or athletic to wear a tracksuit: just by simply wearing the tracksuit, you would embody athleticism and would express an aspiration to be just that.

High Society Skiers

In the 1920s, skiing rose in popularity among the rich and the wealthy, becoming a favorite pastime. Naturally, this new sport needed its own fashion style, so European fashion houses (such as Schiaparelli and Hermès) began to design ensembles for wealthy and fashionable skiers to wear on the slopes.

Though matching pants, jacket and sweater ensembles were constructed, the real breakthrough in skiing apparel occurred after World War II with the use of synthetic stretch fabrics and nylon. These materials enabled designers to design pullover sports tops that were both comfortable and allowed movement. Military clothing design techniques were also incorporated into activewear designs: zip pockets, concealed hoods and stirrup straps became mainstream features of skiwear.

Today, it is still common to see bright colors and stirrup pants, which filtered into mainstream use in the 1980s. Though we’ve let go of the mainstream acceptance of neon pink and turquoise one-piece ski suits, ‘80s ski jackets are still a hot commodity today due to their underground and cult appeal.

Run-DMC Sneaker Style

Run-DMC, an American hip-hop group founded in 1981, heavily influenced the hip-hop style when they insisted on wearing onstage what they wore on the streets. Though the modern hip-hop culture and style is almost synonymous with urban streetwear/sportswear, Run-DMC in the 1980s served as a catalyst for this change. Without intention, they initiated a shift in urban fashion and elevated hip-hop fashion to a new level of influence that remains a dominant power in the fashion industry today. At Run-DMC concerts, fans held up their three-striped sneakers in solidarity with the band, prompting Adidas to offer the first ever million-dollar endorsement deal for a hip-hop group.

Air Jordan & The Vertical Jump

Michael Jordan, the first ever billion-dollar athlete and arguably the most famous basketball player of our time, also had a hand in the rise of the stylish sportswears trend. Air Jordan is a brand of basketball shoes that were created by Nike exclusively for Michael Jordan in early 1984. Basketball players and non-athletics alike all began to lust after these functional basketball shoes because they were associated with Jordan, who had been skyrocketed into stratospheric levels of fame. Later on in 1984, Nike released Air Jordans to the public.

It is true that certain design features of basketball shoes will improve their function, with some basketball shoe companies even claiming players wearing their shoes can jump 3.5 inches higher than they would otherwise. Whether or not this is true, Nike Jordan and Air Jordan remain popular brands that are difficult to order online or find in stores today, because they are still in such high demand.

Yoga Pants’ Rebellion From the Studio

In the 1980s, leggings became a popular trend, though these soon fell out of fashion due to their see-through nature. Although the yoga pants’ precursor was just as comfortable, their transparency hindered their functionality and comfort for women.

In 1998, Lululemon created Boogie’s women’s leggings, and this is the fashion design that is credited with birthing the athleisure movement seen today. Additionally, with the rise in popularity of Western-style yoga and brands like Lululemon and Sweaty Betty who were making yoga pants, leggings came back, but in an updated fashion.

Though yoga pants were first and foremost a functional item, originally intended to be worn during yoga practice, this is quite possible the most popular item of activewear that has infiltrated the modern fashion industry and everyday wear. The fabric of modern yoga pants is opaque enough to be worn outside the yoga studio, and stretchy enough to be worn all day without losing its shape.

If you have any doubts regarding the popularity of this activewear trend, go outside literally anywhere and it is pretty much guaranteed you will find them on a passerby within the first 10 minutes of your searching. Whether or not the girls wearing the yoga pants have been to a yoga class that day is irrelevant: the trend of the super-stretchy, form-fitting material supersedes the popularity of the sport itself. Wearing yoga pants now has almost nothing to do with the sport/fitness activity of yoga: this athleisure fashion trend is symbolic of a larger cultural shift that is occuring in the US, which encourages a “clean eating, clean living” mentality.

The Humble Puffer Jacket

Eddie Bauer, a humble sportswear designed in the 1930s, created the puffer jacket after a close encounter with hypothermia. Inspired by the Russian military jackets, which were filled with down, Bauer then sewed the down into quilted sections so that it wouldn’t all sink to the bottom.

These puffer or quilted jackets became a fashionable trend among hunters, equestrians and rural folk, until the 1990s when the hip-hop scene popularized these activewear jackets even more. New York and Detroit hip-hop artists wore and popularized Helly Hansen, an outdoor manufacturer whose jackets were known for keeping the cold of northern US cities at bay. Today, puffer jackets remain a universal fashion trend and their styles have expanded and grown with modern styles.

Techies and Their Wearable Running Gear

The running world has been largely influential in the modern fashion industry: though analogue wrist watches were, at one point, all the rage, these stylish accessories have been traded in for fitness trackers. Modern wearable technology must meet our functional needs, as well as our emotional, social and aesthetic needs.

The popularity of wearable technology (such as Fitbit, Apple Watch, and other smart watches or activity trackers) his risen, in part, due to the mega cultural trend of Clean Living, mentioned above. The “clean living” mentality, coupled with the rise in technological innovations, has encouraged activities such as “detoxifying” the foods we consume or the products we use, as well as keeping track of our carbon footprint, fitness level and daily caloric intake. To help us modernize, wearable technology, such as the Fitbit, make it easy to track our individual health and fitness level. These products have become so influential in the fashion industry that there are a vast variety of aesthetic designs to apply to any consumer.

CrossFit: The New Tribe

CrossFit is a relatively new fitness brand known for its intense exercise regime. Focusing on high intensity interval training, powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics and calisthenics, the CrossFit brand is one of the most popular fitness trends in the world. The competitive nature of CrossFit gyms, in which CrossFit affiliated gyms will compete against one another, encourages team spirit and a powerful alliance among those who partake. Thus, CrossFit fanatics tend to identify with the brand of their gym: Reebok seems to have monopolized on the CrossFit activewear trend, and has even opened up specialist training centers and sportswear stores in the name of CrossFit.

The Wimbledon Effect

Jane Régny and Suzanne Lenglen were two parisian tennis players who designed and sold activewear for women in the early twentieth century. With their assistance, tennis wear became associated with country clubs and aristocrats, and has been consistently referenced since the 1920s as a preppy, collegiate fashion trend. Brands, such as Fred Perry, emerged with preppy styles of British Mod subculture, and has since become 100% streetwear despite its athletic roots.

Similar to Michael Jordan’s Air Jordans, tennis clothing styles and shoes were popularized into common everyday fashion due to the stardom associated with tennis’ key players and the popular desire to resemble these players. Off the court, tennis shoes are ubiquitous today: brands like Adidas, Keds, Lacoste and Diadora all offer their own spin on the style, solidifying tennis’ fashion transition from sports footwear to everyday footwear.

7 Stylish Sportswear Brands To Know

It’s clear: sportswear is no longer only for playing sports, nor is it primarily understood as casual dress. With the wide range of sportswear brands and retailers offering stylish sportswear, you can be comfortable in your activewear all day long, every single day! In addition to the activewear trends mentioned above, many sportswear brands have risen in popularity, which has significantly changed the modern fashion industry.

Retailers such as Gap, Forever 21 and J. Crew have hopped on board with their own activewear lines as well. Though the following are 7 of the most popular activewear brands, other brands have been just as influential in the modern trend of activewear and in altering the fashion industry. These brands include Vie Active, Pins to Kill, Sweaty Betty, Huntr, Outdoor Voices, Olympia Activewear and Live the Process.

1. Nike

Nike is the most valuable clothing brand in the world, which totalled $28 billion in 2018, despite a 12% drop in North America due to executive misconduct. Nike generated over $30 billion in revenue for each of the last four fiscal years.

2. Adidas by Stella McCartney

The collaboration of beloved designer, Stella McCartney, and one of the greatest sportswear labels of all time, Adidas, makes for a genius sportswear fashion line. With high quality and high performance fabrics, as well as styles in fashionable designs (floral prints, bold colors and futuristic designs!), you will never want to wear anything else.

3. Fabletics by Kate Hudson

Actress Kate Hudson created Fabletics, a brand of activewear designed to suit the wearer. After taking a quiz on style preferences and sizes, you can view a range of Fabletics products geared towards your needs. Fabletics takes the frustration out of shopping for activewear: finding the right product is a breeze when the curated pages are designed for you.

4. Lululemon

Lululemon has an expansive range of products: from running to yoga to training, Lulu probably has what you’re looking for. Their yoga pants and leggings come in a wide variety of colors, lengths and styles to suit everyone. They also offer free in-store yoga classes, which make them the ideal activewear brand.

5. Under Armour

Though Under Armour seems to have lost some popularity in recent years, it remains one of the leading brands in sportswear. In 2018, Under Armour generated the fourth highest sales of athletic apparel, accessories and footwear, and was ranked the fifth most valuable sports business brand worldwide in 2017.

6. FP Movement by Free People

FP Movement, Free People’s activewear, offers a wide range of designs to encourage both functionality and fashion. Decorative cut-outs, added straps, ultra-chic details are just some of the designs offered by FP Movement to encourage an active mentality without sacrificing style or your wallet.

7. Supreme X Louis Vuitton

The collaboration between luxury designers and sports giants has been largely successful and has established the new normal in everyday fashion. In 2017, Louis Vuitton was the first luxury brand to embrace so openly the streetwear movement: with its capsule collection, it endorsed a skater culture emblem, New York’s Supreme. With LV’s iconic red color and monogrammed products, the line was sold out in the first day.

Is Trendy Activewear Going Away Anytime Soon?

Probably not. According to The NPD Group, US activewear apparel sales increased in 2016 by 11% from 2015, totaling $45.9 billion and far outperforming the traditional apparel sector. Though many years ago activewear brands produced fresh trends maybe once or twice a year, the athleisure movement is in full swing today. With new designs for yoga pants, sneakers, tracksuits and trainers seen on the high streets, the sports and fitness fashion market is predicted to reach $231.7 billion by 2024, with an annual growth rate of 4.42%, according to Heuritech.

So, whether you love it or hate it, whether you are in full-support of stretchy, opaque yoga pants or actively trying to sidestep all the efforts of sportswear brands thrown at you via social media and other marketing channels, you can be sure that stylish sportswear is the new trend and it is here to stay, at least for a while.

This post was written by Kara Roberts, blogger and content writer for Sincerely Silver. We specialize in creating custom made jewelry in sterling silver, gold and rose gold and have been featured in a number of publications, including Glamour. For gift ideas and personalized jewelry creations, check out our blog!