PRESS: Sydney Morning Herald April 8-9 2006

DOWNWARD DOG ADOPTS A REBELLIOUS POSE

Edgy Chakras

Like all good trends, this one began with a supermodel. A real supermodel. In 1999, Christy Turlington launched her yoga range, Nuala, with Puma. Six years later, the very glamorous and well-connected British fashion designer Stella McCartney added some fuel to the charkas when she paired up with adidas to introduce an upscale range of yoga gear for her downward dog devotee pals Madonna, Sting and Gwyneth.

There are Gucci yoga mats, Hermes yoga bags, yoga shoes that are perfect for shopping and yoga outfits that have only ever saluted the long lunch. Yoga-wear has gone mainstream and now, like all things fashion-related, it is time to rebel.

Yoga gear is branching out from its more refined, demure beginnings to a rock chick in-your-face-eat-you-for-dinner-and-wash-you-down-with-a-chai-soy-latte kind of way.

Sydney duo Morgwn Rimel and Gaylee Butler launched Yogurt Activeculture online in January in response to the increase in the ’25-40 age group where yoga is part of your life and you’re not a hippy and not a mum’, says Rimel, who adds the range in just as comfortable on Oxford Street as in a yoga studio. Best-sellers include shirts writ large with the words Poser or Enlighten Me, and their electric guitar-printed yoga mat.

‘Yoga’s not always relaxing,’ Rimel says. ‘It can be quite confronting and intense and we wanted to express that mental and emotional side.’

This feature article appeared in:

The Sydney Morning Herald
LIFE Section April 8-9, 2006
Trends by Jacqueline Lunn