Tracksuits And Athleisurewear Have Been Co-opted By The Middle Class
Working class style codes appropriation problem
Tech bros heading into the office in oversized hoodies, sneakers and chinos. Yummy mummies decked out in Lululemon leggings, sweatshirts or zip-up track tops congregating at their local coffee shop. You get the picture. Once upon a time wearing tracksuits and athleisurewear could destroy someone's credibility, especially in the workplace, but my oh my how the axis has spun meaning things look a little (or a lot) different today.
Years ago celebrities and wealthy individuals wouldn’t have been caught dead in a tracksuit. It was a big no-no from the upper echelons of society. But now such naysayers lust over the latest loungewear or athleisure release to hit the market, particularly if it’s a high-end design. Tracksuits and trainers have exploded in popularity in every fashionable corner you can think of, whether that's in the luxury space, premium or contemporary market, cementing themselves in the sports luxe and streetwear hall of fame for a new crowd.
It's no surprise that as tracksuits and athleisurewear have been co-opted by the middle class it left a sour taste in people's mouths. Nowadays this particular crowd of people love to wear Nike Air Max’s, relaxed jogging bottoms, puffed-up gilets and shell suit track tops as if it's always been that way. The kind of thing my family, friends and community have been wearing for decades - I still have a purple velour Juicy Couture tracksuit my Dad bought me in New York that I’ll never get rid of.
In today's landscape, however, the current tracksuits and athleisurewear on the market denote an air of ‘cool’ and ‘trendy’ excluding the people they initially served. Despite the history of the tracksuit belonging to working-class communities, the coding of such clothes has changed as it's now heavily visible on the runways. Balenciaga and Adidas’ oversized runway link up, Gucci’s velour styles, stripped-back matching sets at Celine and metallic co-ords at Public School have become synonymous with the tracksuit and athleisure aesthetic.
This has moved tracksuits and athleisurewear from something the middle class looked down on to a repackaged style that's become acceptable - depending on who’s wearing it. Updating such codes caters to those with the bank balance and disposable income to splurge on designer garms, moving the look out of ‘chav’ territory and into the realm of affluence and acceptability depending on which side of the line you sit.
“[Tracksuits] were traditionally low-brow items,” Serena Brown told the British Journal of Photography when discussing the rise of the tracksuit in British culture “often seen as threatening or ‘chavvy’ when we wore them.” But as she got older, she was confused by their dominance in high fashion. “Suddenly, designer brands were charging thousands of pounds for a tracksuit, and I was seeing low income people being priced out of the trends they had defined.”
Dizzee Rascal donning an all-black tracksuit on the cover of his 2003 Boy In Da Corner album is iconic for a reason. As is Skepta’s lyrics “went to the show, sitting front row in the black tracksuit” from his 2015 track Shutdown, with the rapper walking the Nasir Mazhar Spring/Summer show the same year as the collection was an ode to streetwear and the grime look. These British icons reaffirm style codes such as tracksuits and athleisurewear in a way that makes sense as they aren’t trying to be something they’re not.
We’re watching the world play catch up to the importance and cultural relevance of tracksuits and athleisurewear. In particular, the middle classes and anyone with a degree of wealth that can pick and choose elements of certain aesthetics to appropriate in a way that seems ‘cool’ or ‘edgy’ when it suits them. When you dig deeper, the timing of this couldn’t be more poignant as society is flipping the tracksuit script on its head through a new focus on wealth and optics. This is a gentle reminder that the roots of tracksuits and athleisurewear should never be forgotten.
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