Time flies, it really does. My last blog post was in 2013 and it does not feel as if 7 years have gone by. New year, new beginning, so here it goes! Actually it\u2019s already the later half of 2020, but hey, better late than never! I\u2019m glad I\u2019m starting up my blog again, thanks to the encouragement of my husband, I already have a few new topics I\u2019m excited to be sharing with you all.<\/p>\n
Back to our topic today, black yoga pants. As COVID-19 hit North America in March, many of us got sent home to work-from-home. We soon realized the work clothes that are currently occupying the majority real-estate in our closet will be untouched for quite some time. What I\u2019ve learned, and many of my friends as well, is that we really only need our \u201cblack yoga pants\u201d.<\/p>\n
No longer needing to wake up early, for me it was 6am, and start my commute to avoid traffic. I now wake up at a leisurely and very comfortable 8am and start my day with a relaxing and nutritional breakfast. I then shower and change into one of my 6 yoga outfits that I rotate throughout the week. I feel conformable and relaxed as I open up Zoom, with my tea in hand, and start my new normal way of working remotely.<\/p>\n
When there is a one hour gap between the Zoom meetings, I would pull up my yoga mat and start practicing. Just like that, my new work clothes not only provide me comfort, it also saves me time from changing in and out of outfits as I quickly transition from working to working out. I don\u2019t know how others feel these days, but I feel amazing! As the kids say these days, I\u2019m living my best life!<\/p>\n
This leads into one of my life long questions: why are work clothes so uncomfortable? Also, most importantly, why am I constantly disappointed from products that just doesn\u2019t deliver the unicorn attribute of \u201ctechnical work clothes\u201d? I\u2019m constantly excited when I read news articles introducing a breakthrough brand that clearly identifies the current gap in comfortable work clothes, and how their products will revolutionize the apparel industry. Yet, their products are often disappointing and not as revolutionary as they are marketed. The material is often off the shelf fabric from the fabric mills and have no real technical innovation. They all miss the one, the main, and the most important key to a successful apparel product. That is, a good apparel product starts from the fabric.<\/p>\n
In my years working in the apparel industry, the process of designing for a new style starts with the designer\u2019s sketch of a product. The material team then scrambles to fill in the slot of \u201cfabric\u201d in the Bill of Materials. Fabric is always secondary when it comes to product design. In the product world, designers call the shots. Material developers often have little or no time to develop new fabric for the new product. Thus, often provide off-the-shelf fabric to the designers. What happens is then no real great fabric gets developed and everything in the new season feels as if nothing has changed, and it hasn\u2019t because it\u2019s using the same old fabric as the previous season.<\/p>\n
This is why when you\u2019re like me, who has found the perfect black yoga pant you end up buying 3 pairs. The fabric mill that produces this yoga pant material has been a vendor I\u2019ve worked with since my first job at Nike over 20 years ago. When I mention how I love this one fabric they developed, they offer to give me a whole roll of this fabric! This was when a light bulb went off in my head. Why don\u2019t we make everything out of this one amazing fabric! If you\u2019ve ever imagined a pair of pants that is buttery to the touch, soft and cozy next to skin and also provides the wicking functionality, then this is the pant for you.<\/p>\n
This material literally makes me feel as if I have won the lottery every time I put it on. This is how happy I am while wearing my yoga pants. The question is then, why don\u2019t we stick to the material that works instead of telling material developers to develop a new fabric for every new style!<\/p>\n
Somehow in the design world, customers need to be enticed by the new look of the products, and at the same time new fabric has to be used. Instead of leveraging the home run fabric in more products, designers continuously request multiple versions of the same fabric to be developed due to the pressure to provide novelty from the new season. The result of the extensive work in fabric development is slightly different versions of the same fabric used across multiple styles, and none of them are a home run fabric due to the fact their quality has been diluted. Hence, when new brands launch supposedly \u201c revolutionary products\u201d, the reality is they are selling the same thing- using the same existing fabric as the rest of the world but marketed as something different.<\/p>\n
In an ideal world, I would use my yoga pant fabric to make bra tops, tank tops, t shirts, button up shirts, and more! Wait, actually, this is currently taking place for one yoga wear brand. They have recently launched a whole line of products based on this one fabric. Guess what, I\u2019ve bought more of their products because of this brilliant strategic move.<\/p>\n
The fabric has created a sub set of a brand of products for this apparel company and it\u2019s probably their current biggest revenue driver. All goes to show how important is a great fabric to the success of the product line.<\/p>\n
As we continue to work-from-home the clothes we use to wear back in March are going to be slowly replaced with more comfortable pieces. This is a great opportunity for new brands to emerge, and provide versatile products with both aesthetics and functional attributes. I\u2019m excited to be contributing as an on-line shopper and support those brands with my purchases. That\u2019s another huge perk from WFH, you can shop in between meetings and not have to worry about hiding your computer screen from your co-workers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Time flies, it really does. My last blog post was in 2013 and it does not feel as if 7 years have gone by. New year, new beginning, so here it goes! Actually it\u2019s already the later half of 2020, but hey, better late than never! I\u2019m glad I\u2019m starting up my blog again, thanks … Continue reading All I need are my black yoga pants please<\/span>