“Stylish” is the clothing one dons after yoga, yes? Yoga and fashion have never been soul sisters, and getting busted wearing my yoga pants in the grocery store, hours after class is over, has never been my proudest fashion moment.
No more, says Tobie Orr, Denver, Colorado stylist and fashion expert, best known for her annual Riverfront Park Fashion Series in the Mile-High City, “Lifestyle plays a lot into this movement of yoga apparel going mainstream. We need to achieve a lot in a day, and busy women are looking for clothes that are easy, efficient, and streamlined.”
Georgia Benjou, Fashion Editor of 5280 Magazine in Denver adds:
“Fashion has definitely embraced the sport world over the past few seasons with both European and American designers filtering sport and yoga influence into their collections. I think designers have been able to use core items – racer back tanks, bandeau tops, drawstring sweat pants – to create comfortable pieces that are still stylish and give an urban edge.”
Better yoga clothes are popping up everywhere. High-profile designers like Alexander Wang and Stella McCartney have brought a chic and sophisticated twist to the utilitarian clothing usually relegated to yoga class. This year, the marketplace at the Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, Colorado featured the curve-hugging Lycra, cotton and microfiber styles of hip yogawear purveyors like Lucy, Lululemon Athletica, and Be Present.
Eco-minded trendsetters will be delighted to learn that modern yoga clothes not only look better, but actually are better – using innovative natural fabrics, socially conscious manufacturing practices, and fewer chemicals and waste.
Canadian designer Eric Wazana makes his Second Denim Yoga Jeans with environmental principles in mind. Not only are the jeans comfortable enough for yoga class (yes, you heard that right), but Second Denim’s new line of Eco Jeans are manufactured using 97 percent organic cotton, less water, and fewer dyes and chemicals.
Natural lifestyle company Clary Sage Organics is on a mission to make dressing easier by providing fashion-forward workout wear with an urban edge. Their thoughtfully designed yoga clothes, like their sophisticated scalloped seamed leggings, or the carefully detailed, corsetey vintage swim girdle, reflect the company’s efforts to “empower people to live healthy, thoughtful and ecologically responsible lives,” and look good doing it.
So go on. Find your inner yoga rockstar, your downtown hipster, or your spiritual diva and sport those clothes to yoga class, and beyond.
Editor’s note: This is a guest post written by Sandja Brügmann. Sandja is managing partner of Refresh Agency, a leading specialist PR and digital media agency focusing on the green lifestyle market [LOHAS – lifestyles of health and sustainability]. Sandja was born and raised in the fashion-centric and sustainability-minded Denmark. She grew up in a household run mostly on solar power by an entrepreneurial mother and an eco-conscientious father. Sandja’s vibrant and passionate commitment to inspiring positive planetary change, without compromising on style, is visible throughout her work. Sandja is a certified yogini, a Danish national team and former Olympic hopeful archery champion and she adores her daily lessons as a parent. Follow Sandja on Twitter @sandja.
Images: adifansnet, adifansnet, lululemon athletica