There’s an entire generation of young women who would rather spend $250 on a pair of leggings than a party dress, and they’d tell you it’s because they’ll get more use out of the leggings. We wear them to the gym, to travel, to run errands, to work from home; they’re the hardest-working item in our closet. For other women it might be a sneaker, or maybe a seamless sports bra qualifies as their hero piece. In the future, our wardrobes will be multi-functional and high-performance. That isn’t to say it they’ll be exclusively athleisure; we’ll simply be inclined to buy fewer, better things that work harder for us, whether it’s a pair of leggings or a dress.
Stella McCartney’s newest category speaks directly to that trend. She’s long been of the belief that our workout clothes should be stylish enough to wear “off-duty”—consider her longstanding Adidas collaboration—and hasn’t shied away from technology and function in her runway collections, either. (Look no further than the corn-silk “fur” she developed last fall.) Today, she’s launching Stellawear, a line that merges her swimwear and lingerie collections, though the pieces sort of resist categorization. A bodysuit is also a maillot, a sports bra is also a bikini top, and you could certainly layer them with “regular clothes” during the day; they’re pieces that “can do it all,” as McCartney puts it.
“I wanted to create a new collection that was both multifunctional and kind to the planet,” she says. “I was looking for something that sculpted my body in all the right places, but that I could also work out in or wear as outerwear, that I could wear with jeans, run into the pool, and then dry super quickly to head off to lunch.”
Constructed from recycled nylon with eco-friendly ROICA stretch and sleek laser-cut details, the collection is McCartney’s most eco-friendly lingerie line ever. “It was important to me to design something that was made to last and inspires people to buy less and wear more,” she says. “We tested the products in chlorine and saltwater, and designed them to be versatile in how they are worn and styled.”
If you had one piece that worked triple-duty at the gym, the beach, and to dinner with friends, it wouldn’t just streamline your wardrobe—it would streamline your life. Fewer, harder-working pieces also means less time worrying about what to wear. And once we’re taking vacations again, it might cut down on our packing lists, too. You can shop the collection at stellamccartney.com, with prices starting at $125.
Previously published on Vogue US
Editor
Emily Farra