What is taking the place of jeans in women's wardrobe?

source: http://www.businessinsider.com

These days, yoga pants are taking the place of blue jeans in women’s wardrobe, especially teenagers and young adult. The most obvious example would be 9 out of 10 girls in my class are wearing yoga pants to school, and the one left is wearing the sweatpants. It’s clear that yoga pants are no longer only for yoga and gym, they start a new fashion trend, called the athleisure. Some people say they can’t accept female wearing yoga pants outside the gym because these pants “show everything.” Montana state representative even introduced a bill to the state exposure law that people who wear the clothes that “gives an appearance or simulates”, like yoga pants, should have a $5,000 fine and up to five years in jail, according to the website The Fashion Spot. Meanwhile, plenty of fashion companies changes their direction to athleisure business. The articles will show you the popularization of yoga pants and how companies respond to this new casual trend!

The sources are from the Wall Street Journal and Business Insider, which are very reliable media resources. Teri Agins from WSJ is a fashion reporter who has the perspectives on fashion styling. Ashley Lutz is Business Insider’s deputy business editor, overseeing coverage of retail, restaurants, lifestyle, and transportation.  

Referring to the article from WSJ, like the aerobics craze during the 1980s made leggings trendy, yoga has popularized the stretchy, skintight pants, tank tops, and hoodies. Even though yoga pants are banned by some schools, the female of all sizes and ages continue to wear yoga pants and other athleisure clothing as streetwear, and casual office wear. This circumstance can be good and bad at the same time. In a positive way, women have more rights to decide what to wear and can insist on what pleases them. They are pursuing the concept of “Real Me” and being confident in themselves. On the other hand, athleisure apparel seems too casual for office wear, personally thinking, it is unfitted for someone to wear yoga pants sitting on the office desk to do business. But other than that, ladies get to choose whatever please them. “They are staples in the burgeoning multibillion-dollar “athleisure” apparel category that doubles as streetwear in today’s all-casual, all-the-time mode of dressing,” Agins says. Brands like Tory Burch and celebrities like Rihanna are all diving in this athleisure pool to keep the yoga pants trendy.

Another article from Business Insider points out that jeans are starting to be replaced by yoga pants, and gives an example of Levi’s, one of the most iconic denim companies, refused to accept the trend and ended up with $2.2 billion sales loss over the years. Unlike Levi’s, Gap starts to put lots of money on athleisure. According to a report on teen spending, what was found is that teens are now buying more sportswear from Lululemon and Nike over the denim classics from brands like Abercrombie. In order to maximize the company’s profits, the board of directors has to match up with the “rules of the game”.

In the next blog, I want to focus on how brands public certain style of clothing to attract consumer in different countries and how they use different marketing stradegies in different countries.