Athleisure: History and Key Facts

Athleisure is a hybrid style of athletic clothing typically worn as everyday wear. The word is a portmanteau combining the words "athletic" and "leisure". Athleisure outfits can include tracksuits, sports jackets, hoodies, yoga pants, tights, sneakers, flats, Birkenstocks, uggs, leggings and shorts that look like athletic wear or pair well with it. Characterized as "fashionable, dressed-up sweats and exercise clothing", athleisure grew during the mid-2010s, from the popularity of yoga pants that emerged throughout the mid to late 2000s. The athleisure trend entails casual clothing options that give North American women the option to incorporate athletic clothing as part of their everyday attire, irrespective of their actual engagement in physical activities.

Athleisure is a contemporary fashion industry movement, enabled by scientific development and growth of advanced and cutting-edge textile materials and technical fabrics and fibers which allow modern activewear to be more durable, breathable, lightweight, stretchy, versatile, comfortable, and fashionable. Since the mid-2010s, it is also recognized as a retail clothing category.

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