How America Became a Nation of Yoga Pants

The first pair of yoga pants sold in 1998, lululullemon, are simple items for women to wear in the studio.
It\'s a mixture of nylon and Leica.
Synthetic elastic fibers that provide the stretch and softness needed to manage all the sweat
Induce distortion during a long meeting on the mat.
Yoga is, first of all, an exercise, and later, a cultural phenomenon (
Or cliché, it depends on your cynicism)
Not yet caught.
At the turn of the century, this pair of trousers fills a niche for those who are just looking for a higher Yogi --
End replacement for plain cotton leggings.
Twenty years later, they conquered the closet, even for those who saw it in the yoga studio.
2014 of teenagers start to like leggings instead of jeans.
Then people began to wear sports clothes.
Or exercise, but mainly yoga pants)to run errands.
Now they are wearing yoga pants in the office. U. S.
According to US media reports, women\'s elastic knitted trousers imported last year surpassed jeans for the first time. S. Census Bureau.
Fashion trends are constantly changing, but rarely change the whole category.
Rubber for more than 40 years
Soled sneakers were replaced by basketball shoes, and basketball shoes were replaced by sports shoes.
Boxer underwear did not exist 25 years ago
The drawer is still full of regular old underpants.
But now hybrid cars are the most popular men\'s underwear in the United States.
Yoga pants also put Cowboys in a crisis of survival, threatening Levi Strauss.
So deep that it had to adapt in a hurry.
The company has added elasticity and contours to its jeans, while hoping to keep some rough essence.
Predictably, the popularity of yoga pants has led to a large number of competitors, from the $20 pants of the Old Navy to the $230 version of Lucas Hugh, with brands occupying every segment.
Athletica Inc. of lulululemon.
Mainly due to the elastic trousers brought to the public, they invested a lot of money to develop new fabrics to resist competitors --
Now includes a pack of the world\'s largest sports companies.
\"Consumers are looking forward to more,\" said Sun Zhe, chief product officer at lulululemon . \".
\"They wash their clothes more and it needs to stand up from a quality point of view.
They want some versatility in their products.
They want to be able to go for a full meal or brunch in that pair of trousers or tight clothes.
\"Luon, the original fabric of lulululemon, has a trademark registered in the United States and has a high proportion of nylon microfibers compared to more typical polyester blendsS. in 2005.
Many of its newer fabrics are branded and targeted for specific uses.
Luxtreme is moisture proofwicking, four-
This means stretching the fabric in a way that fits like a second skin.
Nulux is a compressed fabric designed for Swedish workouts.
The \"stinking\" of Lululemon sold by Silverescent-
The technique of bonding on the surface of the fiber with silver to prevent bacterial reproduction. A T-
The shirt made of this material costs $68.
Leggings from market competitors adopt a similar strategy to promote multi-functional pants through a combination of branded fabrics.
For Adidas, the fabric of the pants is like its sweat --
Climalite quick drying or hot
Adjust climate and climate to adapt to training conditions.
Similarly, Nike\'s Dri
The fitted material prevents drying of sweat and sneakers.
Even Target\'s C9-
Brand fitness series flexes high-
Functional fabric: Freedom fabric is a soft mixture of polyester and spandex that is suitable for lifestyle or fitness, while its hug fabric embraces the body tightly and brings a comfortable feeling.
It seems that once a simple elastic leg has become an engineering miracle.
However, it\'s not surprising when you realize that about $48 billion is spent on sportswear in the USS. every year.
A breakthrough product made by a start-up company is swallowed up or crushed by American corporate giants, an old story.
Lululemon\'s words will not let this happen.
The retailer, located in the basement of Vancouver\'s headquarters, is a laboratory called Whitespace, a research and development center of the company.
Here, a team of about 50 employees is working on the next big idea for the brand.
It has developed a lightweight seamless bra and is made into yoga pants in combination with yarn commonly used for the re-use of underwear.
The staff is not just textile workers who are responsible for the production of new fabrics.
It includes scientists and pathologists, mechanical engineers, neural scientists, and bioscientists. Dr.
Tom Waller, PhD in sports technologyD.
From swimming in the Olympic Games to the football World Cup, his works have been tested and blank.
When the R & D center opened for the first time six years ago, it aims to explore what the company calls \"sensory science\" and better understand the sensory experience.
\"The task at that time was to bring some of our talents into the future and explore the macro trends of human behavior and change around us,\" he said . \".
Yoga pants are tangible, but Waller is eager to be ethereal.
Sweat, he says, is money and uses technology to unlock the potential of human beings.
In describing the different fabrics sold by lulululemon, he talked about \"the range of sensory experience and desire \".
\"We solved the physical, emotional, and spiritual components of human beings, and then we pushed the different experiences of the senses,\" said Waller.
Alexandra Plante, director of innovation management at Whitespace, is responsible for converting what she calls a \"tape prototype\" into an actual product.
She has a background in material engineering and has a deep study of fabrics, yarns and polymers.
A few years ago, the study was limited to attention groups and feedback from shop colleagues who asked shoppers.
Now there is a fabric lab, especially in the field of sports. wear space.
Lululemon\'s research department does sports
Capture the test and use the pressure sensor to allow researchers to test how the garment works during movement.
Plante says the team can even test the \"feel\" to help it figure out how to \"design the feel\" at a critical business moment when you first feel the fabric \".
When Lululemon doesn\'t sell anything but Luon, the company sees customers using this pair of pants in a variety of workouts, including high
The fabric is never used for strength training.
So after research and development determined how consumers were wearing them, lululullemon developed materials for each activity --
Therefore, pants are created for runners or dancers.
Even Luon itself, the company\'s original fabric, after years of adjustment and integration of new technologies, is different from 20 years ago. This watch-and-
Learning strategies have become a virtuous circle that has helped turn the boom into a full circle.
Commercial earthquake.
Mistakes have been made, including an inherent mistake.
Spectacular iscalamitous.
In 2013, lulululemon recalled that the pants were too pure because they were seen.
Make mistakes through problems.
Pants were subsequently destroyed, resulting in a loss of $67 million in sales.
The problem has been solved, Choe said.
Now that lulululemon already has a range of products for most sports, it has opened two stores for customers who are interested in rest
Experimental project.
One of them is located in downtown Manhattan (
Another one in Vancouver)
It looks more like a fashion boutique than a place to buy equipment for a gym or yoga studio.
As you may know, yoga has been done for thousands of years without elastic uniforms.
The rise of yoga pants is largely due to the simple timing.
Lululemon\'s coming is coming to an end (
Maybe unfortunate)
Leggings revolution, long time-
Long-term trends tend to be more casual.
Yoga is a three-in-one of the physical, spiritual and spiritual disciplines, involving specific postures and movements originating in ancient India, and was promoted in the West as a sports system in the early 1980 s.
It has declined for a while, but it resumed in early 2000 more commercially than ever before.
A 2016 study from the Journal of Yoga found that more than 36 million people in the United StatesS.
Start practicing yoga from 16 million eight years ago.
As a woman, boutique fitness follows (
There are more than a few men)
Swarm to the sparkling new studio, learn Soul Cycle spin lessons in groups, sweat at training camp in Bari, or carve their core in Pure Barre.
These expensive fashions have nothing to do with yoga practice, but yoga clearly opens up a path for them --
And their clothes.
Now the biggest companies in sports clothing have invested heavily to develop their women\'s clothing series --
Especially in the development of new fabrics and functions once
Simple yoga pants.
Nike at 2014
Began setting a sales target of $7 billion for its women\'s business, reporting revenue of nearly $5 billion.
Executives realize that women are \"pushing for a bigger health campaign around the world \".
A year later, the company reported that the growth rate of women\'s business in the world exceeded that of men.
In the same year, Adidas began to push its young brand Neo to young women.
The German sports giant has even hired former lululemmon chief executive Christine Day as a strategic adviser.
Adidas soon became a huge threat to lulululemon\'s dominance.
Through the PureBoost X series, the early steps turned into exclusive designs for women, using techniques called Climachill and Techfit with a greater emphasis on the active top and bottom, both of which are
Last year, Adidas\'s female sales rose 28% to become one of the company\'s strongest segments.
Active leggings and leggings are now a $1 billion industry, according to dealal Cohen, an analyst at the NPD Group.
He said that their appeal to consumers has generated rapid sales growth and there is no sign of disappearing.
Where lulululemon has been successful among female consumers by offering niche products that meet leisure and active uses, major brands such as Adidas and Nike have completed the painting, this also confirms how strong the trend of sports is.
There are more than 11,000 types of yoga today --
According to data compiled by Retail Research, the specific pants offered by retailers worldwide cover men\'s and women\'s wear.
\"It\'s easy now. to-fit, easy-to-find, easy-to-wear, easy-to-care-
\"Because the product has become a fashion product at the same time, you have the perfect storm,\" Cohen said . \".
\"To be successful with this product, you have to do something very wrong.