The Set Comes Apart: Three Signals Rewriting Athleisure
IN GOOD FORM / 010
THE SET COMES APART
Athleisure is moving beyond the polished matching set. The category is fragmenting—in a good way—into tailoring, technical systems, vintage references and more individual ways of dressing. This issue tracks three signals changing what performance fashion looks like and how it is sold.
01 / NEW OPENING — BOSS ATHLEISURE, LAS VEGAS
BOSS opened its first US store dedicated exclusively to athleisure at Fashion Show Las Vegas in May 2026. For a house associated with tailoring, the move is more than category expansion. It signals a broader redefinition of modern uniform: clothing that can move between travel, work, training and social space without visibly belonging to only one context.
The opportunity is not to make sportswear look formal. It is to bring the intelligence of tailoring—proportion, material, finish and confidence—into performance dressing.
The signal: athleisure is becoming less casual and more adaptable. The new luxury is clothing that changes register without changing outfit.
Reporting and image credit: FashionNetwork.com / BOSS.
02 / CULTURE — GOODBYE, MATCHING SET
Who What Wear reports that Gen Z is moving away from perfectly coordinated workout sets towards mismatched, thrifted and Y2K-inflected combinations. Vintage shorts, old team tops, unexpected colour and pieces with visible life are replacing the frictionless studio uniform.
This is partly aesthetic, but it is also cultural. Matching activewear made wellness legible as status. Mismatching restores personality, resourcefulness and the possibility that movement does not need to look like a campaign. It pushes the category closer to styling and farther from uniform.
The signal: individuality is outperforming coordination. Activewear brands will need to design pieces with distinct character, not only colour stories built to be purchased as sets.
Editorial and image credit: Who What Wear.
Source: https://www.whowhatwear.com/wellness/fitness/gen-z-mismatched-workout-set-trend
03 / EXPERIENCE — THE STORE BECOMES A RUNNING HUB
Salomon’s 2026 Flatiron opening in New York was positioned around community activities as well as product. It reflects a wider shift in performance retail: the store is becoming a basecamp, meeting point and live testing environment.
When a retail team hosts runs, product trials and local programming, expertise becomes visible through action. The physical store stops being the final stage of a purchase journey and becomes the beginning of a relationship—one built through routes, rituals and repeated participation.
The signal: community is no longer the marketing layer around performance retail. It is the operating system.
Reporting credit: Outdoor Sportswire; brand and image credit: Salomon.
Source: https://www.outdoorsportswire.com/?p=209777
Further context: https://shop-eat-surf-outdoor.com/news/arcteryx-salomon-parent-shares-wholesale-plans-forecasts-slower-growth-in-2026/616860/
THE A—N READ
The next phase of athleisure will be less uniform and more authored. It will borrow confidence from fashion, credibility from technical product and loyalty from real-world participation. The brands that win will not simply dress the body for movement. They will understand the identity, community and multiple lives surrounding it.
If the matching set represented aspiration, what does the mismatched future represent? Freedom.