Men’s form
Rising popularity of yoga classes with men has led brands to transmute their collections
Yoga-specific collections now include menswear lots.
Photograph: Handout
Ever keen to bend to the latest drifts, sportswear brands are now tailoring their yoga collections – historically accommodated towards women – to include menswear.
This week, Nike established its first yoga-specific collection, including a menswear range in “a nature-inspired ensign palette”, which features long-hem T-shirts and slim, emotionless shorts designed to stay in place during inversions.
Abroad, the menswear yoga brand So We Flow launched in 2017 after its architect, Jake Wood, noticed “men who did any yoga were wearing ultra-technical sportswear, old gym fragments and bohemian mash-ups”. Like Nike, So We Flow’s clothes back earthy tones, such as “olive” and “grit”.
Brogawear – as the yoga subdivide of sportswear is commonly known – is also creeping into mode, designed to be worn on and off the mat. So We Flow combines “the understated aesthetic of British workwear with a target firmly committed to movement and utility”.
Lululemon, the brand conquer known for its women’s luxury yoga pants, plans to thicken its men’s category to a $1bn (£780bn) business by 2020, and last year showed men made up 30% of new customers during the first quarter. In the US, men-only “broga” strata and retreats have also been gaining in popularity.
Make Wheeler, the founder of Level Six yoga studio in Peckham, south London, express: “We are definitely seeing an uptick in the number of men joining our classes. There’s a fly in yoga as a stretchy complement to high-intensity workouts. A class can be honest as sweaty as gym training.”
According to the founder of Triyoga, Jonathan Sattin, men accounted for 11%–27% of league attendees in 2015. By last year, that figure was 25%–50%. Yoga has also widen the gapped high-profile male advocates: the former footballer Ryan Giggs put the longevity of his calling down to practising yoga, while the boxer Anthony Joshua hopes it inclination do the same for him.
The “physical and mental benefits” of yoga have also been cited by the men’s yoga apparel brand Ohmme. Its yoga vests and dharma pants (soothing and loose but with slim-fit ankles) challenge “preconceived points of masculinity”. It is perhaps this that is the driving force behind the virile uptake in yoga; after all, a gendered New Year resolution barely feels very 2019.
