There was a time when the verb \u201cto wear\u201d carried a precise meaning. You could even just go buy bread, but you did it with a clear purpose: to communicate something. A belonging, a role, a mood. Dressing meant positioning yourself in the world. <\/p>\n
Then came the velour tracksuit.<\/p>\n
The velour tracksuit is not a garment. It\u2019s a shrug. A \u201cwhatever you say.\u201d A choice that abandons form without completely giving up appearance. Soft, docile, accommodating, velour quietly took the place once reserved for the cashmere of bourgeois dressing gowns. It is the uniform of those who have nothing to prove, neither to themselves nor to others. Of those who don\u2019t seek approval, but a sofa. <\/p>\n
A garment that doesn\u2019t aim to impress, but to suspend judgment. To say: \u201cSo? What\u2019s the big deal?\u201d <\/p>\n
All this, however, was true before the 2000s.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s go in order with our tracksuit<\/p>\n
Velour is an ambiguous material. It pretends to be precious, but it isn\u2019t. It has a sheen reminiscent of velvet, without its nobility. Touching it is like accepting the embrace of something that asks nothing in return. In short, you deceive yourself when you touch it or wear it. And you don\u2019t care if it gives your body a horizontal development, or if the pants reach all the way to your feet. You don\u2019t even mind if you look like a living optical illusion. Because it\u2019s comfortable. It\u2019s soft. It\u2019s even shiny. <\/p>\n
Precisely for this reason, in the 2000s the velour tracksuit asserted itself with an unprecedented pop arrogance, in the form of eccentric matching sets, often with flashy logos and sugary hues. The body that embodied this mutation was the slender, brazen figure of Paris Hilton, wearing it like a glamorous armor made of softness and domestic rebellion. Her figure \u2014 in pastel pink tracksuit, oversized sunglasses, and Chihuahua in hand \u2014 made visible a new type of feminine power: self-referential, performative, conscious, yet frivolous. <\/p>\n
An aesthetic of relaxed excess, seemingly saying: \u201cYes, I have everything, but I also have time not to worry about it.\u201d End of story. Finally, the velour tracksuit had its moment of redemption. You were no longer an optical illusion. In the 2000s, wearing this tracksuit meant you were fashion. <\/p>\n
After all, fashion had noticed. Juicy Couture had turned the velour tracksuit into a status statement for celebrities and wannabes alike. Karl Lagerfeld, asked about the phenomenon, declared that anyone wearing a tracksuit \u201chas lost control of their life\u201d \u2014 yet his own world couldn\u2019t stop imitating it on the runway. Athleisure collections by designers like Alexander Wang and Jeremy Scott shamelessly flirted with the aesthetic of exaggerated comfort. <\/p>\n
Yet, even in that cool version, fashion, as we know, passes by. Even then, there was a subtle undercurrent of disarmament, where the fabric\u2019s softness offset the brand\u2019s excess. <\/p>\n
Today, the velour tracksuit survives, but in quieter, almost zen tones: it has abandoned vanity while keeping the privilege of not-having-to-try. It has become the discreet symbol of cultivated fatigue, of an aesthetic surrender granted only to those who could afford the opposite. <\/p>\n
Those who still champion the velour tracksuit with illustrious determination are now mostly a few trap or rap artists; for the rest, fashion has mostly moved on. Poor velour tracksuit, and poor us who were so comfortable\u2026 <\/p>\n
How did this happen? It\u2019s fine, it doesn\u2019t promise improvement. But comfort \u2014 that, it does. <\/p>\n
Did it really deserve to fall out of favor so quickly? It doesn\u2019t elevate, fine, but it envelops. It doesn\u2019t impose, it yields. <\/p>\n
All true, yet a nostalgic wearer can still sometimes be seen walking through the city center, velour tracksuit in place. Silent, contemplative, touching it and looking challengingly at those forced into a rigid jacket with shoulders sculpted in marble, producing \u2014 to say the least \u2014 a marble-like gait. <\/p>\n
The nostalgic wearer knows that the velour tracksuit is the outfit of the day after, the hour before, the \u201cnot today, thanks.\u201d Deep down, we all know it. <\/p>\n
And let\u2019s be honest: it\u2019s comfortable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was a time when the verb \u201cto wear\u201d carried a precise meaning. You could even just go buy bread, but you did it with a clear purpose: to communicate something. A belonging, a role, a mood. Dressing meant positioning yourself in the world. Then came the velour tracksuit. The velour tracksuit is not a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1021,"featured_media":900440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-900439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-omnibus"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n