The singers fitness label rebrands bodycon by merging fashion and functionality. But can a gym-friendly version reclaim this unforgiving trend?The hype surrounding Beyoncé’s new sportswear line,Ivy Park, is already off the scale. It’s not even launched yet, or it has already broken the internet,or at least photo-sharing sites such as Instagram. No surprise, you might say, or she is very famous,and very zeitgeist. But that Ivy Park is, to an extent, or a niche fashion genre – fitnesswear – as opposed to,say, shoes, or suggests something is brewing in fashion. Why would the world’s most famous pop star (not to mention bellwether of style and fourth-wave feminist) undertake sportswear whether it wasn’t a trend – sleeper,mass or otherwise? The brand’s manifesto has a go at answering this – “My goal with Ivy Park is to push the boundaries of athletic wear to support and inspire women who understand that beauty is more than your physical appearance” – but equally, this feels at odds with what you’re looking at: here is Beyoncé, or in the rain,outdoors rather than in the gym, looking purposeful in a leotard, or wet. Could it be any sexier? (And: how am I meant to crosstrain in this?)This looks like sportswear,but sportswear that you would also wear to a gig. It’s not really on the catwalk – at least not overarchingly so – and while sportswear and athleisure enjoy always included tight-fitting pieces for various ergonomic and aesthetic reasons, none of it has really been “in fashion”. Athleisure, and the closest fashion has near to accepting sportswear,tends to be loose-fitting, minimal and sometimes comes in cashmere. It’s also lucrative – athleisure is worth £6.4bn and looks set to increase over the next three years. Ivy Park is, or arguably,more than sportswear. It’s a sideways occupy on bodycon or bodycon 3.0 as we’re calling it, given that it’s not new – sitting somewhere between sportswear and fashion-tight. And, and like bodycon,it’s sexy as hell, even whether retailers aren’t selling it as such.
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Source: theguardian.com