Our New Collection Is Workout Gear You Can Wear To Work

Introduction

Over the last decade, athleisure has been one of the most significant, parameter-shifting movements in fashion, with the sartorial registers of sport and style merging to the point of indiscernibility everywhere, from the runway to the grocery run. Nike has been a key proponent of this shift, with swoosh-branded yoga leggings, trail running shoes and compression tops becoming part of the everyperson’s day-to-day wardrobe. Its latest apparel launch, however, has absolutely nothing to do with athleisure – rather, Nike 24.7 marks the sports titan’s venture into plain old ready-to-wear.

Well, “plain old” isn’t quite the right qualifier. After all, as with all of the brand’s launches, Nike 24.7 is the result of an assiduous, sportsperson-centred research and development process, with the easy-wearing pleated skirts, chinos, wide-leg pants and more being precision-engineered with the exacting demands of jobbing athletes in mind. “Everything we do starts and ends with the voice of the athlete, so the impetus for all of this was what our athletes were telling us,” Jaclyn Safley, general manager of Nike global training, women’s, says.

Blending Performance and Lifestyle

That includes figures like British sprinter and Olympic gold medallist – oh, and former British Vogue cover star! – Dina Asher-Smith, who served as a central inspiration for the collection, and a face for its campaign. “At Nike, we’ve started to see athletes talk more and more about how they don’t see this delineation between performance and lifestyle. They’re going about their day in the same type of way that they are when they work out, and Dina’s a testament to that,” Safley says. “She always tells us about how she loves to bring her full self to the track; that she’s the same person that she is in life [beyond competing]. She calls herself a fashion girly – she wants to bring that full expression to everything that she does.”

Courtesy of Nike

Nike global

Innovative Fashion Performance

Of course, creating an offering that speaks straight to the hearts of the fashion girlies, while also maintaining a performance-standard pedigree, is no mean feat. Nike’s ability to do so, however, relies on two key material innovations born of the brand’s Portland-based Sports Research Lab. The first is ImpossiblySoft, a spacer-knit fabric with a four-way stretch, used for the collection’s women’s and men’s half-zip and crew-neck silhouettes, as well as a women’s jogger and men’s pants. The second is PerfectStretch, a sleek, four-way stretch tailoring fabric that features in the pleated skirt, wide-leg pants and woven shirt for women, and chino and five-pocket pants for men.

The result is a collection that exudes contemporary, fashion-forward flair, and offers the comfort of wearing your workout gear, while remaining work meeting-appropriate. “This is a new space for us, but I think it's really pushing the industry forward,” Safley says. “Everything we do is rooted in sport and sport heritage, and this takes some of that DNA and infuses it in really iconic silhouettes that are going to give you that little bit of edge and distinction. It’s a new take on everyday activewear. Rather than athleisure, this is truly sport throughout your day.” Pilates gear on the plane? Out. Nike 24.7? In.