Here’s How Elevated Athleisure Is Taking Over the Runway
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If you’ve picked up on a buzzing synergy between high fashion and sports lately, you’re not mistaken. At the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, French luxury group LVMH was a first-time premium sponsor of the Games—supplying everything from medals to custom Louis Vuitton trunks. Elsewhere on the fashion front, rising WNBA stars like Angel Reese are quickly becoming some of our most stylish athletes. Now, further evidence of this budding relationship has landed on the runway, with designers putting their own spin on elevated sporty motifs.
This luxe athleisure is very different from what we saw in the 2010s, the decade the term was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Back then, “casual” was the name of the game, whether that meant yoga pants as daywear or an emphasis on streetwear. But now? “I love the idea of thinking of sport in a luxurious way,” says Tory Burch, whose spring 2025 collection dressed up the concept with sequined bodysuits, football jersey dresses, and suede judo pants. “We’re obviously referencing some sport ideas, but it’s incredibly wearable and chic.” The show venue was transformed to look like the inside of a swimming pool, with Team USA Olympic artistic gymnast Suni Lee sitting front row.
Burch believes that the trend is here to stay, partly because the pandemic forever changed the way we dress. “When COVID happened, people really found their sportier side,” she says. “People realized that they want to be comfortable, and when you’re comfortable, you’re confident.”
Today, in any bustling city, you’re liable to spot someone wearing bike shorts with an oversize sweatshirt à la Princess Diana, or a tenniscore outfit in the vein of Challengers. It doesn’t even matter if you’re actually athletic; that’s almost beside the point. “Looking like you’re fit and taking care of yourself feels very attractive,” says designer Melitta Baumeister. Team USA Paralympic track and field star Scout Bassett opened her spring 2025 show, sprinting down the runway in a black jersey. “For me, it’s about what the athlete stands for,” Baumeister says. Bassett “is such a spokesperson for her underrepresented field—being a Paralympian and also female. It’s about strength, resilience, and pushing things forward.”
Another brand adding its voice to the elevated athleisure conversation is Literary Sport, which made its New York Fashion Week debut this past September. Its focus is on refined running wear, but it also offers transitional garments that are meant to be worn in your day-to-day: running jackets, zip hoodies, and track pants. “A major inspiration was about bringing artfulness into sport,” says Jackie McKeown, the label’s creative and design director. “It feels like something fresh and different that you don’t see as much, especially in other active brands.” On Literary Sport’s Instagram, for example, sandwiched between photos of the clothes, you’ll find artwork by Mark Rothko and Keith Haring. The brand showed its inaugural collection (and shot its lookbook) at the Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery in New York City, adding another layer to its considered vibe.
For Off-White’s spring 2025 collection, aptly shown on the community basketball courts at Brooklyn Bridge Park, creative director Ibrahim Kamara pushed the concept of high and low, with pairings like a cycling top and beaded skirt. “That contrast of a sportswear and fashion garment coming together is so Off-White, it’s so real,” he says. “You’re supposed to take something that everyone knows—and then slap it with something quite timeless and beautiful.”
A version of this story appears in the February 2025 issue of ELLE.
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