Athleisure Is Not For You

“Side to Side” has all the accoutrements of the spin gym, including the spin bikes, sauna, shower and, uh, pommel horse. But it also doubles as an advertisement for Guess’s athleisure line with Ariana Grande, which debuted upon the release of the video (it premiered on their retail site) and includes sheer-paneled leggings and a grey hoodie for $59.

This is all set against four decades of workout-adjacent music culture, including Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit “Physical”—an early music video sensation in sweatbands and legwarmers—and Flashdance, Kanye’s inspiration for the “Fame” video and, no doubt, his Yeezy fashion line. (It’s no coincidence that, in this athleisurely era, his high-priced garments for Yeezy have been entirely inspired by 1980s leotards and off-duty ballerina gear.) But the current era is different because whereas workout-inspired videos used to telegraph hustle of some kind, now the imprimatur of workout culture is the appearance of leisure—being able to afford the lifestyle it accompanies.

While the widespread popularity of “athleisure” in American culture is a hellish development in the waning realm of individual personal style, it also coincides with a moment in which excessive exercise is seen as aspirational, adjacent to those $11 green juices. While people wandering the city in yoga pants with no discernible athletic destination may seem schlubby, there’s a proximity to the relaxed lifestyle that it hopes to project. It’s the Kardashians, walking to and from their gym in Los Angeles, leggings and a tank top and sneakers between business meetings, working on the physiques that help prop up an empire that wouldn’t exist in its current form without their physiques. It’s part and parcel of this moment, in which dogged physicality is associated with goodness, particularly in women, chalices that we are of the basest of cultural expectations.

In 2004, Kanye West made a track called “The New Workout Plan,” and for the video cast Anna Nicole Smith as his main workout model. (Tracee Ellis Ross and Vida Guerra also made cameos). The contrast between Smith’s comically half-assed aerobic exercise and Teyana Taylor’s astounding athleticism in “Fade” is indicative of the way workout culture has shifted over the last decade (and, perhaps, West’s sense of humor, too).

“Fade,” also offers a different, deeper context than the glossy facade of Grande’s “Side to Side,” and a deeper celebration of one woman’s physical power than somewhat empty lifestyle marketing. When seemingly all of Twitter announced that they (we) were going to the gym after seeing “Fade,” the sentiment was certainly about her own aspirational physique but also about Taylor’s strength, and her ability to hit every note with such ease and exactitude. Philosophically, it was about the follow-through rather than the representation; she’s dancing for the joy of it, and we’re watching her—gawking, really, in admiration—but ultimately it’s not about us. It’s about her family and her ability to protect them (if a little surreal, as she poses at the end with fiancé, daughter and a herd of sheep while wearing the mask of a lioness).

Athleisure is a smaller figment in the cultural trend towards performing fitness, which in itself is lifestyle marketing. Subscribing to athleisure as a trend can lead to the illusion of being on the way to or from the gym, just like the Kardashians always seem to be in their Instagrams. They clearly work out hard and often, but for those of us who cannot devote such time to it, the projection that we are less sedentary than we might be is a way of telling ourselves that we are not bad because of it. In other words, fitness is great and deeply important for our health. But the cult of it is a complex, rude imposition. It’s also tough to resist.