Racked: All Posts by Marisa MeltzerThe National Shopping, Stores, and Retail Scene Bloghttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52809/32x32.0..png2015-11-23T10:00:02-05:00https://www.racked.com/authors/marisa-meltzer/rss2015-11-23T10:00:02-05:002015-11-23T10:00:02-05:00All in the #Tamily
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<p>Worshipping at the altar of Tracy Anderson</p> <p>They call themselves the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/tamily/">#tamily</a>, Tracy Anderson's loyal devotees. The <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/tamtribe/">#tamtribe</a> have #tamhubbies and stream Anderson's cardio-dance workouts in <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/tarealtime/">#tarealtime</a>. Some live in New York City and are able to attend classes at the trainer's Tribeca studio, but most are much more far-flung: Portugal, South Africa, Argentina, Saskatoon.</p>
<p>Sure, they interact online, <a href="https://instagram.com/p/-RZAP8KNXE/">commenting</a> on each other's Instagram videos of that day's leg lifts ("you look gorgeous and strong"). They also FaceTime workouts and text about soreness, or which steamer to get to replicate the humidity of Anderson's studio. But the relationships have grown deeper than that. Some call each other every single day, others proclaim the tamily their very best friends.</p>
<p>Emery Chapman, a core tamily member who owns a bed and breakfast in Maine, told Anderson's assistant that what they really, really dreamed of was to meet up and work out in the same room. "I'm like, tell them I'll host them if they can just get themselves here. I'll teach them all together," Anderson says. There was one caveat, though. "The only bummer is the room only fits 25 people."</p>
<p>So Chapman invited the 25 most dedicated members of the tribe and they flew in from at least four different continents to eat and drink and work out and bond for a weekend in October. Morgen DeMann, a makeup artist and tamily member who lives in midtown Manhattan, volunteered to house some of the crew and host a brunch. "There has been a lot of girl-crushing," she says.</p>
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<p>It's the Sunday of the weekend and they're all gathered in the hallway at the studio waiting for their 2 p.m. master class. Behind them, at least two A-list celebrities are working out. But instead of gawk, they'd rather talk about how the Tracy Anderson Method has changed their lives. "Well, the results are huge, so you keep coming back for more," says Chapman. Melissa Rigdon, who traveled from Florida, shows me a before-and-after photo of the 48-pound weight loss she credits to Anderson.</p>
<p>When it's time for class, Anderson comes in wearing a T-shirt that reads "sisTAhood." In person, she's taut and muscular, but also surprisingly sexy and ethereal. She would look great in a flower crown. DeMann calls her a "fairy ninja." "That girl could kick your ass," she says. "She's like a WWE fighter, but looks like a ballerina."</p>
<p>Everyone stands in a kind of receiving line to say hello and take a selfie. Someone records Anderson saying hi to a tamily member who couldn't make it. She talks about how moved she is that everyone came, that they're rooming together, that they really get each other and get her. Anderson chokes up. Next to me, DeMann starts crying and within seconds, at least half the room is in tears.</p>
<p>"Okay," Anderson says, taking a deep breath, and puts on Drake. We start dancing.</p>
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<div class="float-right hang-right"><p><q class="pullquote"><span>Now it seems like every celebrity — Kim Kardashian, Lena Dunham, Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham — trains with her.</span></q></p></div>
<p>Before the five studios, the 160 different workout DVDs, and the high-profile clientele, Anderson was a dancer who struggled to keep a dancer's body. The story goes that a couple of decades ago she met a doctor through her then-husband, a professional basketball player, who advocated targeting and strengthening small muscles. She took his advice, she says, to transform her own body. The dancer-to-trainer evolution came when she began working with women around her (Anderson uses the word "studied"), giving them diet advice and designing their exercise programs, creating a different workout every 10 days to keep engaging those smaller muscles. The Tracy Anderson Method was born.</p>
<p>"Unlike other exercise programs that target the major muscle groups, the Tracy Anderson Method focuses instead on the accessory muscles," <a href="http://tracyanderson.com/">her website</a> reads. "With the former, women tend to build bulk, and then they invariably plateau finding that they cannot continue to change their bodies." Anderson's routines change every 10 days to keep the muscles confused. What that translates to are cardio classes consisting of small choreographed moves that feel like a combination of Broadway-style dance, aerobics, and hip-hop. There are also mat-based high-rep workouts with names like "Attain Definition" that use weights and bands to tone the whole body, with a special focus on the thighs and butt. Classes are taught in rooms heated to precisely 86 degrees, with 69 percent humidity.</p>
<p>It wasn't until Gwyneth Paltrow used Anderson's exercises to get her postpartum body in shape for <em>Iron Man</em> in 2006 that everything changed for Tracy. Paltrow became business partners with Anderson and talked up the company in the press and on <a href="http://www.racked.com/2015/7/21/9006055/goop-gwyneth-paltrow">Goop</a>. Now it seems like every celebrity — Kim Kardashian, Lena Dunham, Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham — trains with her. On the new <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/12/8593979/muppets-show-trailer-first-look">Muppets show</a>, Miss Piggy attends Tracy Anderson classes; if <em>Sex and the City</em> still existed, there would definitely be a scene with Carrie and company struggling through a session.</p>
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<p><span>"It was never my mission to train celebs or make them teeny-tiny, those things were forced upon me by the press," says Anderson. And yet she is now a bona fide celebrity herself, a red carpet fixture that has graced the </span><a style="line-height: 1.44; background-color: #ffffff;" href="http://tracyanderson.com/tracy-anderson-on-the-cover-of-health-magazine/">covers</a><span> </span><a style="line-height: 1.44; background-color: #ffffff;" href="http://tracyanderson.com/tracy-anderson-on-the-cover-of-hamptons-magazine/">of</a><span> </span><a style="line-height: 1.44; background-color: #ffffff;" href="http://tracyanderson.com/tracy-anderson-on-the-summer-cover-of-health-magazine/">magazines</a><span>, and counts many of her star clients as real-life friends. "I text with Lena [Dunham] and Jenni [Konner] every day. They threw my 40th birthday party. Gwyneth, she is my dear, dear sister in life."</span></p>
<p>At first her Tribeca studio was a members-only affair. Even though the monthly fee is $900, there was a waitlist to join. Recently the studio has gone pay-per-class; at $45 each, they're are on the high end of what <a href="http://www.racked.com/2015/6/10/8748149/fitness-class-costs">boutique fitness classes cost</a> in New York City. (There are also two Hamptons studios, two Los Angeles studios, and private training sessions available in London.)</p>
<p>But Anderson wants to be democratic. She wants to be inclusive. "If you're in the middle of Montana and I'm in the press all the time, and you're like, ‘I want that,' I don't want to be the girl that's like, ‘You can't have it, I'm so sorry.' I don't want to be a mean girl who's like, ‘My life's so great and you can't have this." So she has a #tamily-approved video streaming service that transmits sessions, with subscriptions starting at $90 per month. "I'm not in hair and makeup. I'm in my sweats," she says. "I'm a real woman. I literally just share myself with them."</p>
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<p>There's a definite body-by-Tracy look, modeled after Anderson's own physique: a flat, chiseled stomach; skinny, sculpted arms; bottoms that are small and pert. It's an aesthetic that looks like a lot of work has been put into maintaining it. "I call them bird girls, so light with tiny little bones and they fly around the studio," says DeMann, who notes that she's 5'10 and a size 8.</p>
<p>Jared Reichert, who works in fashion, goes to men's classes at the Tribeca studio. (There are separate men's classes, as well as men's workout videos.) The Tracy body is "a mixture between athletic and ballerina. The women are very thin with tone and definition. It's not skinny-fat, it's skinny with muscles," he says. "On the men, it's just shredded. Sometimes I stand naked in front of the mirror and I can't believe it. I may have taken a selfie after class."</p>
<p>Anderson wants us all to know that we too can have that body, or at least an improvement on our current one. "At this point I know what I'm doing with anyone's body. There's not a body that can come in my door that I don't have content to help. There's no one I have not been able to change," she says. "I'm in the business of speaking straight to people."</p>
<p>People like Mallory Goodman. "I'm a thin person, but since I started working out, I couldn't find something that addressed trouble areas," says Goodman, an actress and tutor who lives in Tribeca and joined the studio in January. "I met with Tracy privately and she said, ‘Oh yeah, I see that, we can fix that, we can do this.' It was a relief that finally someone was on my side."</p>
<p>But the Faustian bargain you have to make is one of dedication. "When I first came to the public scene, everyone wanted to say I was nuts," says Anderson. "I was being nice saying you should exercise four to six days a week, even though I believe it should be seven."</p>
<div class="float-left hang-left"><p><q class="pullquote"><span>"Sometimes I stand naked in front of the mirror and I can't believe it. I may have taken a selfie after class."</span></q></p></div>
<p>Ali, a public relations executive, drives downtown from her home on the Upper West Side every morning for the 6 or 7 a.m. class. "Do you want to hear something crazy? Sometimes I go back at night." That level of commitment is not an anomaly; in fact the norm at the studio seems to be two hours of class, six days a week. It makes sense economically to get the most out of your membership fee. Ali has been working out with Anderson for almost eight years, ever since she saw a flyer at her neighborhood gym promoting a two-week boot camp with Gwyneth Paltrow's trainer. "It's really just a chance to unleash your inner Janet Jackson."</p>
<p>Or, as Kimberly Emery, who used to attend class in New York before she moved to Minneapolis (where she now streams classes), says, "It's what you do, like you eat lunch."</p>
<p>"It's a particular type of woman, a type-A, to have that kind of commitment," says Candice Miller, a stylist in Tribeca. And that's further reflected in where in the studio you choose to work out. "I prefer the front row because I like to watch myself to make sure I'm doing the moves correctly. I guess the front row people are the front row people."</p>
<p>"But it's a great mix," she continues. "Young moms, art consultants, real estate, jewelry designers — they're all super cool. You would never know some are super glamorous, but then you look on their Instagrams and they have these super glam lives." After class, they all go for tea and oatmeal or to <a href="http://www.racked.com/2015/7/14/8952479/juice-companies-juice-press-organic-avenue-blueprint">Juice Press</a> together.</p>
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<p>The community is an oft-repeated reason for what keeps studio members coming back. Sabrina Leichter Rudin of Chelsea, who owns a vegetarian restaurant and juice bar in Aspen, attends the 9 and 10 a.m. classes with the same group pretty much daily: "Many have become good friends. We go to each other's birthdays and baby showers and bridal showers. You have your Tracy girls and it transcends Tracy and becomes your community."</p>
<p>Her own loyalty to Anderson is such that when she found out she was pregnant, "besides my family, she was one of the only calls I made after I spoke to my doctor. I knew she'd know what to do and what to be careful of," she says. "She's accessible. She's obviously a celebrity personality, but she's there every morning at 8 a.m. in her sweat clothes with us."</p>
<div class="float-right hang-right"><p><q class="pullquote">"It could be providing food for a family for a year in a third-world country, but that's just New York."</q></p></div>
<p>The studio itself has a certain mystique, as do its members. "There's a little misconception that it's competitive, that we don't smile and don't talk to each other," says Rudin. "You would think there is attitude, but they could not be more nice," says Emery. She once even rode the elevator down from class with Gwyneth Paltrow herself. "I was just looking at my email, but I was dying to ask her for lunch. She started chatting me up: ‘Hey, how was your workout?' She could not stop talking."</p>
<p>As for the overall privilege of the place, Emery says, "You get used to it. You could buy a car if you opened up the lockers in the locker room, or it could be providing food for a family for a year in a third-world country, but that's just New York."</p>
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<p>I expected the studio to feel like a Soho House for Tribeca moms. And in some respects, it lives up to that image. Are there a lot of gold Cartier Love bracelets? Are there Céline bags in the lockers? Are there tight, size-zero, blond Tracy Anderson lookalikes? Yes, yes, yes. But you see a lot of that same tribe at any fancy-ish fitness place like <a href="http://www.racked.com/2015/3/4/8110647/soulcycle-elizabeth-cutler-julie-rice">SoulCycle</a> or Equinox. There are differences as well. Perhaps because of how often members come, there seems to be an intimacy between them and the people who work there: teachers, staff at the front desk. I saw a woman who cleans the locker room and a member sitting down and laughing at something on an iPhone.</p>
<p>Classes are as quiet as a Scientology birth. Instead of screaming out directions and cues, you're supposed to watch the teacher and tune into your own body. It's meditative, and when coupled with Beyoncé singing "Pretty Hurts," makes arm presses go by surprisingly fast. But it's also difficult to tell if you're doing something wrong and no one is making notes on form, which is why members often throw in a few private sessions for good measure. After my first class, I feel pain for days in leg muscles I hadn't known existed.</p>
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<p>Back at the tamily class, attempting to follow what felt like the 15,000th repetition of an ankle weight-assisted leg lift, I think I got it. Not the moves (although Anderson did pat me on the head at one point and said, "Good job," which felt like being blessed by the Pope), but the whole ethos of the Tracy Anderson Method.</p>
<p>There is something refreshing, or at least realistic, about Anderson's approach. You can have the body of a starlet, but you have to put in the work to do it. There are no quick fixes.</p>
<p>And for the motivated, the studio — whether you show up in person or stream from your home continents away — is a best-case scenario fitness sorority, where everyone you meet is really nice and really friendly and has a cool life and is invested in this thing. No one more so than the matriarch.</p>
<p class="end">"The best part about Tracy teaching a class," says DeMann at the end of one of the tamily sessions, "is that you watch her, and even just for a second, you think, ‘I could be this, too.'"</p>
<p><em>Editor: </em><a href="http://www.racked.com/authors/julia-rubin"><em>Julia Rubin</em></a></p>
https://www.racked.com/2015/11/23/9772920/tracy-anderson-method-tamilyMarisa Meltzer2015-06-10T10:00:02-04:002015-06-10T10:00:02-04:00Why Fitness Classes Are Making You Go Broke
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<p>A few months ago, Sarah realized she was going broke. Between AKT for cardio dance, Exhale for yoga, and SLT for, well, strengthening, lengthening, and toning, she figured out she was spending $550 a month on boutique fitness classes alone.</p> <p>"When you break it down," the New York native says, "it's $35, give or take, per class, and then you have to go four times a week to really see results." On top of that, there was the cost of transportation to classes outside of her neighborhood: a MetroCard, but also, unavoidably, some cabs. That’s when she realized she was really spending closer to $700 each month on her workout habit.</p>
<p>Fitness has become a luxury item. There are leggings that cost in the three figures, (organic! soy-free! superfood-packed!) smoothies creeping up into the $20 range, and, of course, Ubers to take home after a grueling 45 minutes of boxing. But at the center of it all are the classes.</p>
<p>Think of the girl at a $2,400 week-long yoga retreat in Tulum who casually mentions she goes to Barry's Bootcamp every day and spends around $12,000 a year on exercise classes. Or the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/style/a-race-to-the-front-row.html">front row regular</a> at SoulCycle who the instructor shouts out for doing a triple—that's three back-to-back classes, totaling over $100 on one single day of spinning. With studios keeping credit cards on file and offering seemingly endless scheduling options, it’s easy to buy class packages (and bottles of water and cute tanks) and never pause to think about how it’s all adding up.</p>
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<p><span>Sarah, who asked that her name be changed so her friends and colleagues don’t realize how much she spends on exercise, works in publishing and lives within walking distance of her job in midtown Manhattan with a roommate. In other words, she’s not exactly a mom with a </span><a href="http://ny.racked.com/2015/6/2/8706411/primates-of-park-avenue" style="line-height: 1.44; background-color: #ffffff;"><i>Primates of Park Avenue</i></a><span>-worthy lifestyle budget or a minor celebrity trying to look good for the paparazzi. "It prompted me to reassess my financial situation," she says of crunching the numbers on her fitness routine. "I think people are overindulging in exercise and not really realizing how much they're spending."</span></p>
<p>She rejoined Equinox (perhaps New York's priciest gym chain, which charges $225 a month for an all-access pass, plus a $400 initiation fee) after seeing a friend who got in shape by working out there with moves she learned at the free training session that came with her membership. Sarah's not quitting boutique fitness entirely, though. She’ll still go once a week ("Instead of dinner with friends, we'll do a workout class"), but she is mourning her previous lifestyle. "I hate having to get there 15 minutes early and being squished in with a million people," she says of reentering gym world. "You don't have as much room or a class full of fashion editors in there."</p>
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<p><q class="pullquote">"People are overindulging in exercise and not really realizing how much they're spending."</q></p>
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<p>There are services like <a href="http://www.racked.com/2015/1/20/7560577/classpass">ClassPass</a> and <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1514733&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fitreserve.com%2F&referrer=racked.com&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.racked.com%2F2015%2F6%2F10%2F8748149%2Ffitness-class-costs" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank">FitReserve</a> that allow users to sample the boutique fitness experience at a deep discount, but some brands, like AKT, only offer classes at off-peak hours, and others, like SoulCycle, don't offer classes period. David Barton Gym, known for its nightclub aesthetic, has partnered with indoor cycling chain Cyc so that its members can go to boutique classes at a cheaper rate. The bottom line, says David Barton president Kevin Kavanaugh, is that "you don't have to mortgage the house to get fit, but you do need to be motivated and encouraged."</p>
<p>It’s a point that Michael Fishman, who has advised consumer health businesses for the past 25 years, echoes: "Fitness can be had by anybody for free. The money really is about experience." Gyms have "a lot of lone rangers and people who want to be left alone." But the new boutique boom is the exact opposite. Fishman says it draws upon the appeal that practices like yoga have banked on for years, "a spiritual and tribal aspect, people gathering around a methodology."</p>
<p>"Athlete, Legend, Warrior, Renegade, Rockstar" is the SoulCycle motto that’s usually rendered in large letters in its studios and emblazoned on tops. Fishman has gone to SoulCycle and calls it a "fitness and dance club experience." He points out that its choices of location—Soho, Beverly Hills—are "affluent neighborhoods where luxury is purchased. There are people with money in those locations, but also people who will spend an inordinate amount beyond what they should for the ancillary benefit: the in-crowd." Just ask anyone who has looked over and gotten a minor thrill from seeing David Beckham or Karlie Kloss on the bike next to them.</p>
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<p><span>AKT founder Anna Kaiser points out that her classes never have more than 15 people in them for "the personalization of private training, but the energy of a group." She doesn't think classes will surpass the $40 limit in the next five years, but she "also didn’t think I'd ever be paying $4.50 for coffee."</span></p>
<p>In her view, it’s all about priorities. "You could lease a car or go really deep into a transformation program and change your life," she says. "I’ll see clients that pay $450 for a T-shirt, but have an issue with $37 for an intimate experience with another human being. It always shocks me when someone shows me a $3,500 dress and then tries to bargain out of a class. Most of these people wouldn’t think twice about a $40 blowout." Plus, she adds, going to a boutique fitness class costs about half (or less) of what seeing a personal trainer does.</p>
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<p><q class="pullquote">"You could lease a car or go really deep into a transformation program and change your life."</q></p>
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<p>Dana Thomas, the author of <i>Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster</i>, grew up on Philadelphia's Main Line. "For me, it goes back to there were people who went to the local swim club, then the country club, then the really exclusive country club with the mahogany library and ballroom," she says. "Cavemen used to decorate furs with bits of bone. They couldn't even speak and they were trying to show off their value."</p>
<p>Making our status and wealth known to others is something deeply embedded within us. Thomas, who lives in Paris, is sympathetic to the idea of fitness as luxury: "Years ago, I was a member of the Ritz Hotel spa because the dollar was so strong. What seemed like a lot of money was relatively reasonable, probably around $2000 a year." She could work out, have a steam, take a shower, and meet a friend for drinks at the Hemingway Bar, plus "sometimes you'd see Madonna playing squash or Jennifer Aniston on the LifeCycle."</p>
<p>The Ritz has since closed, but according to Thomas, when the hotel reopens (with, among other amenities, the world's first <a href="http://www.racked.com/2015/5/28/8680513/chanel-spa-paris">Chanel spa</a>), membership may cost upwards of 15,000 to 20,000 euros, not including an annual fee. She won’t be signing up.</p>
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<p>"I met an American socialite, around 40 years old, who buys couture, flies on a private jet," Thomas continues. "She said, ‘My whole wardrobe is either gym and yoga clothes or couture.’" Which brings up another point: The height of opulence, especially in warm, fit cities like Miami and LA, is being rich enough not to work so you can spend all of your time perfecting your body, which has become the <a href="http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/05/rise-of-the-couture-body.html">ultimate luxury item</a> itself.</p>
<p>"In the past, a perfect body was a status symbol, but it was achieved privately—you just hired a personal trainer and starved yourself," says Jenny, who works in tech and spends around $850 each month on fitness. "But now there’s a whole culture surrounding the process of achieving a great body, social media platforms to broadcast that process, and communities that have developed from it. I feel like this is Hannah Bronfman’s whole thing. If I had a surplus of free time and money, I would work out constantly and eat only the finest organic fruits and veggies and grass-fed beef."</p>
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<p><q class="pullquote">"In the past, a perfect body was a status symbol, but it was achieved privately—you just hired a personal trainer and starved yourself."</q></p>
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<p>One of the appeals of exercise, beyond making you look and feel good, is how quantifiable it is, says Jenny: "For high achieving people, it’s one of the few chances you get in adulthood to measure yourself against a fixed, objective line that mirrors the grading system in school. A lot of professional success can be really subjective, but being like, ‘I ran six miles yesterday and seven miles today!’ gives you the same sense of accomplishment as getting a 4.0 GPA."</p>
<p>Jenny asked that her name be changed partly because she recently bought a package of personal training sessions at Equinox (on top of the boutique classes she already attends) and is keeping it a secret from her boyfriend "so he wouldn't judge me for spending my money frivolously. It is by far the most indulgent part of my budget."</p>
<p>SoulCycle founder Elizabeth Cutler recently <a href="http://www.racked.com/2015/3/4/8110647/soulcycle-elizabeth-cutler-julie-rice">told Racked</a> that "when people pay for something, there’s a certain commitment and a certain energy that they bring to it, and that elevates the whole [concept]. That’s where you start to feel the commitment." As far as discounts? "We have never needed to do it and people value what they pay for." That same sentence could have been uttered by a company like <a href="http://www.racked.com/2014/9/3/7578483/goyard">Goyard</a> or Hermès.</p>
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<p><span>"I’m always deeply suspicious of anything that’s discounted, and by the same token, always drawn in by anything with a fixed high price," says Jenny. "I go to expensive fitness classes for the same reasons I’ll have an iPhone forever, no matter how high the price gets. There’s something really psychologically powerful that happens when you witness other people practically begging to pay high prices for something."</span></p>
<p>Which is one of the reasons why the "A Tribe Called Sweat" hoodies at Brooklyn's Y7 Yoga are always sold out or a new company like <a href="http://ny.racked.com/2015/2/19/8069239/shadowbox-boxing-nyc">Shadowbox</a> opens with a line of logo tanks at the ready—clients can show off their loyalty (at juice bars, on Instagram) and prove that they belong. It’s the grown-up version of going to the merch table at a concert, a way of telling everyone about an experience you paid a lot to have. While broadcasting your salary is still taboo, boutique fitness is an almost stealth way to display one’s conspicuous consumption.</p>
<p>Then, of course, there's the fact that fitness classes are a healthy purchase, which makes it all too easy to justify spending money on them. In this way, they are the perfect product, and maybe that’s why Sarah had such a hard time downgrading. "After all," she says, "It's doing something good for yourself."</p>
https://www.racked.com/2015/6/10/8748149/fitness-class-costsMarisa Meltzer2015-03-17T12:00:03-04:002015-03-17T12:00:03-04:00Fashion’s Bold New Future Has No Gender
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<figcaption>Items hanging at the Selfridges Agender pop-up shop. Photo: Selfridges</figcaption>
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<p>Blame <a href="http://www.racked.com/2014/5/14/7600019/fitness-apparel-trend">athleisure</a>, that slow-burn trend that has us wearing workout clothes outside of the gym, or maybe look to the jersey dressing championed by the likes of Alexander Wang, but much of what passes for men’s and women’s clothing these days is separated by a line that’s barely perceptible.</p> <p>"The great gender blur," Ruth La Ferla called it in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/inside-fashion-week/fall-2015/gender"><em>New York Times</em></a>, writing about the fall collections coming out of the <a href="http://www.racked.com/video/2015/2/23/8084725/nyfw-fall-2015-trends">most recent New York Fashion Week</a>. "That deliberate erosion on the runways of a once rigid demarcation between conventionally feminine and masculine clothes." It was a season of girls in roomy pants and coats, guys in slit shirtdress combos, and runways populated with both male and female models walking the same show. She pointed to lines like Public School, Hood by Air, and Telfar for examples of gender-neutral styles.</p>
<p>The New York City-born and Liberia-raised <a href="http://www.telfar.net/">Telfar Clemens</a> describes his namesake line of minimalist denim, leather, and thigh-high leg warmers as "a fusion of fashion and functionality." He's happy to leave further analysis to the critics, though. "I feel like if something looks good on <em>you,</em> it’s for <em>you</em> to wear," he says. "I've always felt this when it comes to my personal style and it’s what I want to achieve with Telfar."</p>
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<p class="caption">Looks from Telfar's fall 2015 collection were shown on both female and male models. Photos: Telfar</p>
<p>"Guys like girls' jeans as much as men’s jeans," says Rox Brown, a personal shopper and stylist at <a href="https://www.vfiles.com/">VFiles</a>. "But sportswear made unisex a thing. If you think about sweats, hoodies, leggings underneath shorts—that’s a sports thing. That opened the gate." Louis Terline, the cofounder of <a href="http://www.oaknyc.com/">Oak</a>, agrees: "It happened when the sweatpant became a fetish object for designers, when they began playing with the notion of the T-shirt."</p>
<p>But gender-neutral fashion doesn’t begin and end with a futuristic take on sportswear. Look at the <a href="http://www.racked.com/2015/2/25/8107383/gucci-fall-2015">male and female dandies</a> at Gucci last month. It's not unusual to see men in women’s lines like Céline (think <a href="http://style.mtv.com/2011/04/19/kanye-west-womens-blouses/">Kanye West at Coachella</a> in 2011), and women have long been encouraged to dabble in men’s (Hedi Slimane-era Dior Homme, anyone?). Men’s clothes are "becoming more feminine. Culturally we're in a phase where we're leading towards that. It’s becoming more mainstream," says <a href="http://www.nikkacy.com/">Nik Kacy</a>, who identifies as genderfluid and designs traditionally masculine shoes in an inclusive spectrum of sizes, in the same vein of lines like <a href="http://www.sharpesuiting.com/">Sharpe Suiting</a> and <a href="http://www.saintharridan.com/">St. Harridan</a>.</p>
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<p><q class="pullquote">Over the last several years, the broader cultural shift in how we view gender has also picked up speed in the fashion industry.</q></p>
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<p>In fact, fashion has a fairly rich history of experimenting with, and even embracing, androgyny, from the suiting favored by Katherine Hepburn all the way up through decidedly non-girly grunge (both the original and rehabilitated versions). Over the last several years, the broader cultural shift in how we view gender has also picked up speed in the fashion industry, where they like to think they’re on the forefront of these things. Trans models like Lea T and Andreja Pejic have both broken barriers and helped spark wider discussions of gender fluidity. It’s a conversation that's ongoing.</p>
<p>"We have been engaged in this dialogue for years," says Terline. "That's always been part of our buying and designing discussions." The store he started with Jeff Madalena is the kind of retailer that specializes in drapey, all-black-everything looks that both a male and female clientele enjoy. Their locations in New York and Los Angeles are divided into men’s and women’s sections, chiefly to avoid size confusion, with some items are merchandised on both sides of the divide. "Sometimes the difference between men’s and women’s is just in sizing or arbitrary function like pocket size," he says, noting that he often sees men shopping in the women's area.</p>
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<p class="caption">Customers float between the largely similar men's and women's sections at Oak. Photo: Oak</p>
<p>Terline notes that there are really two aspects to unisex dressing: "the idea of men's clothes on women and vice versa, and then garments that are mid-space." Indeed some designers, like Baja East, don’t bother to differentiate between genders. Then there's Acne, APC, and Assembly New York, who have all made virtually identical styles in slightly different cuts for men and women for years. <a href="http://personnelofnewyork.com/">Personnel of New York</a>, a boutique in the West Village, has its online shop divided into men, women, and "everyone."</p>
<p>One designer Personnel carries in that neutral zone is <a href="http://www.sixty-nine.us/">69</a>, the Los Angeles-based line of cocoon dresses and tunics in cotton, linen, and denim modeled by both men and women (and worn by the likes of Rihanna). "The lines are blurring," says the designer of 69. The brand and its designer take unisex very seriously: "In an attempt to embody the idea of a genderless non-demographic brand, I as the designer choose to remain anonymous both by name and gender. Please do not share these details."</p>
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<p class="caption-hang">69 positions itself as a genderless clothing brand. Photo: 69</p>
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<p>It turns out selling genderless clothing to guys hasn’t been all that difficult for 69. "Everyone can relate to denim, everyone can relate to neutral shapes. It's a little Japanese," the designer explains. Women will wear the brand's tunics with leggings or as a dress with bare legs and men will pair the same thing with pants and sneakers and maybe throw a jacket over it: "I haven't found it a challenge for men to buy my clothes at all."</p>
<p>In New York, the line is largely sold in stores that house both men’s and women’s apparel; in LA, mostly in women’s stores. It helps that 69 started to refer to what might be called a dress as a "lounger." So who buys it? "I know exactly the sort of, I don't want to say demographic, but moms in Silver Lake and dudes—just like fashionable dudes—buy it," says the designer. "A fashionable bro will wear it. I know that sounds so vague, but that's who it is."</p>
<p>Will Thompson is counting the number of items he owns from 69. At least half a dozen, he relays over the phone after a stop at a Patrik Ervell sample sale. Ervell’s luxe basics satisfy the classic side of his style, but 69? "The pieces are so strong, I try not to pair them with anything too crazy—they’re such a statement themselves," says Thompson, 25, who works at Opening Ceremony, which carries the line. He’ll pair a fringe jacket from last season with a hoodie and some jeans and sneakers, or he’ll wear their tall tee (some might call it a T-shirt dress) "by itself with a nice turtleneck underneath and some bright shoes." As 69’s designer explains, "It's all in how it's marketed to people. If you build it they will come."</p>
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<p class="caption">Signs at the Agender pop-up strike out the words "she" and "he" in favor of "me." Photo: Selfridges</p>
<p>That’s the approach that British department store Selfridges is taking with its new <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1514733&xs=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.selfridges.com%2Fcontent%2Farticle%2Fcoming-soon-agender&referrer=racked.com&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.racked.com%2F2015%2F3%2F17%2F8218321%2Fgender-neutral-clothes-unisex" rel="sponsored nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Agender pop-up</a>, which it has created with interior designer Faye Toogood. (Toogood also has a unisex outerwear line called <a href="http://t-o-o-g-o-o-d.com/">Collection 002</a> that comes with a manifesto celebrating a "liberating mode that is available to all, male and female.") The idea behind Agender is less that the clothing itself is androgynous, but rather that the pop-up takes on a neutral approach to traditional department store merchandising: clothes from both the men’s and women’s seasonal buys are being sold alongside one another without traditional gender cues.</p>
<p>"Many of our female customers don’t think twice about shopping the menswear floor and, increasingly, we see men buying women’s ready-to-wear and accessories, too," says Linda Hewson, Selfridges' creative director. "Menswear and womenswear are mixing together in a really effortless way. The autumn 2015 men’s shows felt like the movement's real tipping point to becoming something meaningful and permanent."</p>
<p>Culturally speaking, gender-neutral dressing is ultimately about changing entrenched notions of what is masculine and feminine. "Body types and identity types are more fluid than fashion has ever discussed," says Oak's Terline. "It’s coming from this place of a broader diversity in general."</p>
https://www.racked.com/2015/3/17/8218321/gender-neutral-clothes-unisexMarisa Meltzer2015-01-13T11:00:00-05:002015-01-13T11:00:00-05:00Long Skirts, Designer Shirts: Modest Fashion Hits the Mainstream
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<p>When Summer Albarcha went to her prom in Missouri a couple of years ago, she wore what she calls "a regular prom dress" accessorized with a blazer and a sparkly headscarf. Albarcha, now a 19-year-old college student, says her ability to match her fashion sense to her Muslim beliefs was the reason she started a fashion blog, <a href="http://www.hipsterhijabis.com/">Hipster Hijabis</a>. On it, she shows off her latest normal-girl outfits (Nordstrom tops, jackets from Topshop) and provides links to Zara tunics and polka dot headscarves.</p> <p>Whenever there's a story about hip, young Muslim women, aka "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Nq0NzRrfE">mipsters</a>" or "hijabistas," Albarcha is usually mentioned. But she's part of a larger, much more disparate group of women of many different faiths—Jewish, Christian, Muslim—who dress modestly in accordance with their beliefs, trying to be as fashionable as possible while also figuring out how to cover their knees, elbows, and collarbones, and blogging about it along the way.</p>
<p>It's actually not a bad time to be shopping for modest clothes. Last year, Donna Karan created a <a href="http://arabia.style.com/fashion/news/dkny-introduces-the-dknyramadan-capsule-collection-2014/">Ramadan capsule collection</a> of long, silky dresses and a marketing campaign with Middle Eastern fashion types to go along with it. But fashion is having a bit of a love affair with covering up that goes way beyond just the faithful.</p>
<p>"The idea of clothing is to enhance the beauty, show off the elegance of the clothing," says Albarcha. "That's a message that's been lost recently. But right now, there are a lot of modest things in style, like capes and oversized sweaters." Think shirts buttoned up to the collar, long hemlines and light cashmere sweaters by The Row (and on Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen themselves), Maria Cornejo cocoon coats, and almost anything by Marni. Miuccia Prada is nearly always shot wearing a skirt that covers her knees and a crewneck sweater, and she appears to have never met a beret she didn't like.</p>
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<p class="caption">Kate Middleton has become a modest style icon. Photo: Getty Images</p>
<p>And then there's the Kate Middleton effect. The Duchess of Cambridge, with her long-sleeve wedding dress, ballet flats, and monarch-approved hemlines, is "the gold standard" of modesty, says Debbie Shatzkes, an Orthodox Jewish 29-year-old who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and has a fashion blog called <a href="http://jewishworkinggirl.blogspot.com/">The Oak</a>. Shatzkes also likes Maggie Gyllenhaal (who is "always showing up in these boho outfits but she's covered up"), Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dresses, and Elie Saab gowns. (Although Mayim Bialik, who is an Orthodox Jew, has spoken about the difficulty of finding awards show dresses that don't have plunging necklines, as well as designers willing to supply them.)</p>
<p>Of course, Coachella attendees, Young Hollywood, and pop stars haven't exactly followed suit when it comes to the modesty trend. "When I see someone like Ariana Grande in almost no miniskirt, I want to say, 'Put on some clothes,'" says Shatkes. "They look pretty wonderful, but there's something so sophisticated about dressing a little more covered. I don't want to say that modest and classic are interchangeable, but there was a time when covered up was the norm."</p>
<div class="float-right hang-right"><q class="pullquote">"Women want to cover up without feeling frumpy."</q></div>
<p>It's a recurring sentiment from women who aim to dress modestly that they want to project a kind of grown-up beauty along the lines of Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, or Jackie O. As Jae Curtis, a Utah-based Mormon and blogger at <a href="http://www.nomoremomjeans.com/">No More Mom Jeans</a> explains, "Women want to cover up without feeling frumpy. When I get dressed in the morning, I'm not like 'Oh, I <em>need</em> to cover my shoulders.'"</p>
<p>It just happens: She keeps her shoulders covered, makes sure dresses and skirts hit the knee or below, and avoids low-cut shirts. "I actually think that modest dressing is something that naturally occurs when you have kids and get a little older. I'm 30—I'm no longer in a place where showing a lot of skin is a priority to me. I want to look classic, clean, and stylish, so I naturally gravitate toward clothes that help me accomplish that image."</p>
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<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;"><a href="https://instagram.com/p/xE6IOYhHps/" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none;" target="_top">A photo posted by Mimi and Mushky (@mimumaxi)</a> on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2014-12-26T16:30:14+00:00">Dec 26, 2014 at 8:30am PST</time></p>
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<p class="caption">Started by a pair of Orthodox Jewish sisters-in-law, Mimu Maxi counts women of all faiths among its clients. Photo: Mimu Maxi</p>
<p>"Hijab allows me to control the way I'm perceived. The absence of overt sexuality allows my voice to be heard over my looks and I love that," says Melanie Elturk, 30, a Chicago and Dubai-based attorney and fashion designer for <a href="http://www.hautehijab.com/">Haute Hijab</a> whose website includes posts like "<a href="http://www.hautehijab.com/blogs/hijab-fashion/6343910-a-hijabis-guide-to-dressing-for-your-body-type">A Hijabi's Guide to Modest Dressing for your Body Type</a>." She quotes the contemporary Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan: "Modesty is the way you deal with beauty, not the way you avoid it."</p>
<p>Dressing modestly "is our way of saying, 'Yes, my body is powerful, and it's not for everyone,'" says Mushky Notik, 26, who designs the Crown Heights-based modest line <a href="http://www.mimumaxi.com/">Mimu Maxi</a> with her sister-in-law Mimi Hecht, 28. As religious Jews, they strive to go beyond the ubiquitous black skirts of the Orthodox set. They have a very specific aesthetic. Their smock-like clothes are flowing, draped, and sometimes asymmetrical and wouldn't look out of place at a cool downtown boutique like Creatures of Comfort, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, or Henrik Vibskov.</p>
<div class="float-right hang-right"><q class="pullquote">"Modesty is the way you deal with beauty, not the way you avoid it."</q></div>
<p>Perhaps because of that, they have a slew of non-Jewish customers who order from them and show up at their pop-up shops. They love reaching a larger audience and will include, say, a girl in a headscarf wearing their skirt leggings <a href="http://instagram.com/p/utg5N5BHhl">on their Instagram</a> with captions like, "incorporates the skirt into her #Muslim #Hipster #modestfashionvibe." The comments can be a veritable interfaith group hug: "It's so nice to see my Muslim sisters and my Jewish sisters working together in making peace in a world full of turmoil. #PEACE #LOVEIT!" posted user <a href="http://instagram.com/happyhijabi2001/">@happyhijabi2001</a>.</p>
<p>Sometimes, however, the conversation heats up. About a year ago, Albarcha posted an outfit of the day that consisted of a Mimu Maxi skirt and hijab; the brand, in turn, <a href="http://instagram.com/p/qYD2wqBHmo/">reposted the photo</a> to its various social media accounts. Some customers didn't like it, citing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as reason to boycott the brand. Hecht and Notik's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MimuMaxi/photos/a.267092916733654.54520.260274184082194/557657681010508/">official response on Facebook</a> was that "any Jewish support of modesty in the world at large should be promoted."</p>
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<p class="caption">The Olsens, and their line The Row, are another modest fashion touchstone. Photo: Getty Images</p>
<p>At No More Mom Jeans, Curtis aims to keep religion on the back burner and focus on the clothes. "I prefer to keep the blog ambiguous," she says. "I'm LDS, so much of my audience is Mormon, but I make it a point to keep my religion off of my blog for a couple of different reasons. First, my blog makes money, and I prefer not to advertise my religion as a way to garner a larger following. Second, I also have followers who are Jewish and Muslim. I don't want to pinpoint myself as this 'Mormon modest fashion blogger' because then suddenly I only appeal to one demographic, and what's more, I'm now open to judgement based on how others perceive the tenants of my own religion."</p>
<p>Like those in the larger style blogging world, modest fashion bloggers face the same criticisms: they're self-promoting and materialistic. Curtis has a <a href="http://www.nomoremomjeans.com/2014_07_01_archive.html">popular post</a> about the hypocrisy of modest fashion bloggers who flaunt themselves.</p>
<p>"Modesty is not solely about clothes, it's about behavior," she wrote. "Is it really modest to wear a skirt to your knees and then show off your Louboutin box artfully draped with your newest red soles? How about wearing a one-piece swimsuit, but giving a tour of your walk-in closet or flashing the logo from your Chloe bag?... It bugs me when someone is essentially capitalizing on the ideal of modesty, but only practicing one tiny portion of what modesty actually means."</p>
<div class="float-right hang-right"><q class="pullquote">"Modesty is not solely about clothes, it's about behavior."</q></div>
<p>But what if a woman committed to modest dressing wants to try out something a little racier? As someone whose modern-day fashion icons are Olivia Palermo and Victoria Beckham, if Elturk sees an outfit that shows more than just her hands, face, and feet, she has a simple solution: "I buy and wear them at home or on vacation at private villas with my husband," she says. "I love the fact that I dress modestly in public and save the not-so-modest dressing for the only person who I believe is entitled to see me dressed that way."</p>
<p>Albarcha doesn't even consider clothes that aren't modest; she compares it to bypassing styles that don't look good on you. "I wouldn't know how to pull it off. It's something I'm not used to," she says. "And it's a lot of maintenance to have your legs looking tan, your arms looking nice and smooth. Honestly, dressing modestly makes getting ready in the morning easier. I just do my makeup."</p>
<p>For Curtis, it's a mix of preference and practicality. "It's not as if I'm pining over a miniskirt, because in all honesty, my personal style doesn't really include miniskirts. It's almost like you put blinders on: I know the stuff on the red carpet doesn't work in real life on real women, so why even consider it? I'm too busy trying to find the perfect sheath dress."</p>
https://www.racked.com/2015/1/13/7561739/modesty-fashion-dressing-modestlyMarisa Meltzer