You know Quince for its iconic slip dresses and airy linen duvet sets, and R29 readers and editors are obsessed with the budget-friendly-meets-luxe label. Now, the San Francisco-based brand has ventured away from its signature washable silk dresses and skirts as well as its best-selling European linen to create a new eco-friendly workout line. Quince’s Activewear Collection guarantees premium, sustainable athletic wear without the hefty cost — items are on sale now and start at only $20.
Quince’s moisture-wicking, quick-drying, odor-repelling, and four-way stretch activewear is made out of premium fabrics woven from post-consumer recycled polyester. Whoa, whoa — what does that mean? Approximately, seven two-liter plastic Coke or Sprite bottles go into each piece instead of a landfill. Pretty wild to think about, but it’s true. That’s not all, its new line is three-way certified by the Global Recycle Standard, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, and Bluesign. These are all stamps of approval from organizations that follow the industry’s sustainable efforts.
So revamp your entire workout selections for new elevated and sustainable items for a fraction of the traditional retail price. Shop a matching bra and legging set for $60! Scroll ahead to see the few looks we’ve set aside for you all. Besides ultra-soft leggings and supportive bras, the collection features bike shorts, breathable tank tops, sleek hoodies, and airy dresses galore.
Whether you’re going to a yoga class or for a quick run, opt for a stretchy four-way legging and sports bra set. The pair is designed for low- to medium-intensity workouts, so expect them in your weekly lineup. Even better, there’s a wide range of hues to choose from. You can find neutral shades, like oatmeal and charcoal gray, and more pigmented tones, like rose pink and olive green. It’s the creative activewear set to mix and match to your heart’s content.
Behold the magical blend between fashionable and functional athletic gear. Jump, run, and play to the fullest with a breathable and moisture-wicking polyester and spandex dress. You’ll be cool and breezy on and off the court with thin straps and a delicate racerback style. Plus, for all you phone fanatics, don’t worry. You don’t have to leave your phone in your bag, as it has built-in shorts and pockets designed for that.
If you’re more of a hoodie-and-shorts type of athlete, Quince has got you covered. The brand offers a whole head-to-toe Flowknit getup of a full-zip hoodie, shorts, and a cropped V-neck tank. Therefore, the fashionistas can tap into the trendy matching sweatsuit look for their next run.
I have a pair of joggers assigned for quick midday pick-me-ups, an Uber Eats order, or package delivery. However, when it comes to the gym? Not so friendly. Yet, with Quince’s performance jogger, you can now do all the above and go for a leisurely walk or low-intensity workout. It’s the best of both worlds. In addition, the joggers are made out of the brand’s signature ultra-soft Flowknit fabric, so you’ll get that slim but relaxed-fit silhouette — ideal for everyday pants.
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I asked for no pink clothes but I got them anyway. That’s what happens when you get pregnant with a baby girl — people begin to shower you with pink. At first, I was annoyed, then later I got angry. Eventually, though, I felt resigned.
Love it or loathe it, hot pink is a color trend with legs. From fluorescent pink to fuchsia, this bold, aggressive color has become deeply embedded in the American psyche as a shorthand for all things both feminine and femme. While I’ve long resisted the pull of pink, this newest iteration of the color has me rethinking my stance. I’ve started to see the allure of big, loud, scorching pinks. They were, after all, the first colors to ever appear on planet earth some 500 million years ago.
Culturally, pink is a lot newer. Since color trends always start with the Adamic act of naming, it’s worth noting that pink is a rather unique color, linguistically. While Russian, for example, has two separate words for both blue and light blue, English doesn’t typically distinguish between principle hues and their paler variants. In the 17th century, this changed with the emergence of the word “pink.” The color (a lighter shade of red) is named for a flower: pinks are a family of flowers that include carnations, sweet williams, “maiden pinks,” among others. These flowers were, in turn, named for their jagged edges, which looked like they had been cut with a type of scissors, “pinking shears.” Used to make zig-zag rifts in fabric, this tailors’ tool is what gave us the word. Not a flower then, a blade.
But over the last 200 years, pink has become culturally linked to the so-called gentler sex, an association that tends to emphasize the floral qualities of gender performance rather than the cutting ones. This linkage, between pink and girls, started in the Victorian era, gained strength in the 20th century, and remains strong to this day as evident by the apparel I received for my daughter. But while pale pink tends to be tied to all the innocence of girlhood, hot pink is, well, a lot hotter and more taboo. There’s a reason Sex and the City’s producers chose this hue for their title cards, and there’s a reason trendy sex toy companies almost always offer a hot pink colorway for their products, and there’s a reason googling “pink house” will bring up an Australian brothel.
The first hot pink to hit big in American fashion was introduced, unsurprisingly, by a woman designer. Elsa Schiaparelli was an Italian designer whose aesthetic, in the words of historian and color expert Kassia St. Clair, “was liberally seasoned with surrealism and daring.” Schiaparelli was behind the iconic lobster dress as well as a number of other madcap garments, including a hat shaped like a hand, a frock covered in seed packets, and a long black skeleton gown with rib-like padding. But she became most known for her use of “Shocking Pink.”
“She dressed Zsa Zsa Gabor in it for the 1952 film Moulin Rouge; used it all over the packaging for her perfume (called ‘Shocking de Schiaparelli’, of course); even smoked cigarettes with hot-pink-dyed tips,” writes St. Clair. Other midcentury tastemakers embraced the shade, including grande dame of style and former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland and everyone’s favorite “femme fatale” Marilyn Monroe, who famously wore a hot pink dress in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. You may notice that these are all women with decidedly adult tastes. While some shades of pink feel docile, soothing, and domestic, shocking pink is anything but.
Then there’s fluorescent pink. While the heyday of American neon signage occurred during the 1920s to the 1950s, the art form had a resurgence in the 1980s. In particular, the ’80s resurgence embraced the beachy palette of Miami Vice, Valley Girl, and Lisa Frank. Think: sunset orange, neon pink, oceanic teal, cobalt blue. This palette has recently come back into style with the embrace of vaporwave aesthetics and music. The 21st-century reiteration of the nightlife-inspired, dayglow look is even edgier than the cocaine-fueled original, but there’s a similar pink light thrown onto every surface.
For those of us born in the 1980s, bright pink is a throwback to our childhood toys, our Barbie houses, our Manic Panic phases, and our Gwen Stefani worship. In more recent years, hot pink became a direct response to the tyranny of earth tones, beige, and millennial pink. There’s something a bit subversive about hot pink, a little bit trollish, a little bit esoteric. There’s a reason why Lady Gaga chose a doll-like look in the hue while Kacey Musgrave channeled Barbie for the camp-themed 2019 Met Gala. And there are several reasons why Pugh’s breast-baring gown elicited such controversy — I count the color she chose for her sheer stunner among them.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 06: Lady Gaga arrives for the 2019 Met Gala celebrating Camp: Notes on Fashion at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Karwai Tang/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – MAY 06: Kacey Musgraves attends The 2019 Met Gala Celebrating Camp: Notes On Fashion – Arrivalsat The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 6, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Rabbani and Solimene Photography/WireImage)
I’ve even changed my mind and been letting my three-year-old dress herself in hot pink and purple — her two favorite colors, as she’ll tell anyone who will listen. Currently, I’m wearing a hot pink Jockey sports bra under my black overalls. The look is very Avril On The Farm — fitting since I’m an ex-emo teen-gone-rural. Lately, I’ve been finding myself listening to some of my old obsessions — the screamo sounds of Cursive, the frustrated swells of Rainer Maria. Like so many millennials, Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 album, Sour, rekindled my aural appreciation for angry, vindictive, vitriolic music. It’s a sound that comes with a scene, and that scene was never very friendly to women. Perhaps that’s why, when girls did break into punk and emo, they tended to either downplay their femininity entirely or put it all out there, Courtney Love-style — smeared lipstick, slip dresses, ripped lace, and the ubiquitous, Betsey Johnson-approved color combination of hot pink-and-black.
My loungewear aside, there are some very adult ways to wear hot pink in the scorching heat of 2022. In some ways, there’s no garment that feels emotionally further from the taupe pink Babaà sweaters of 2018 than a shocking pink trench coat by Jacquemus, a brand that has long recognized the hue’s allure, or a tailored Valentino suit (a la Zendaya). These aren’t cozy or cottagecore. And while men look fabulous in femme pink (as evidenced by Billy Porter and Harry Styles), historically it hasn’t been viewed as a gender-neutral color. Millennial pink was, arguably, a neutral. But hot pink has never claimed to be neutral in any sense. It didn’t matter that her crotch was completely paved over, we all knew Barbie was a woman.
“Pink, it’s my new obsession,” screamed Steven Tyler in his 1997 hit, “Pink.” Although the song’s lyrics made it obvious that Aerosmith was (yet again) making music about sex, once the video dropped, it became clear that “Pink” was more than just a vagina-positive song. It became an anthem for joyful gender expression, for bodies and their many defiant variations. Janelle Monáe picked up this thread in 2018 with her video for “Pynk,” which made the connection between color and body part even more explicit thanks to some amazing labia-flower pants. “Boy it’s cool, if you got the blue,” she sings between shots of women in tighty-whities emblazoned with pink text reading “I grab back” (a reference to Donald Trump’s 2005 comments and the pink pussy hats worn by protesters following his election) swaying and dancing in a pink-draped room. “We got the pink.” While some people insist on seeing genitalia as something to seize and control, the emphasis in these songs was on personal ownership and bodily autonomy (ever heard of her?!).
I think that’s the real reason we’re reaching for this hyper femme pink. It’s plastic, it’s neon, it’s fluorescent, it’s shocking, sexy, contemporary, and nostalgic all at once. It’s tacky on purpose, camp by design. Hot pink will always feel a bit like drag, an exaggerated version of feminine dressing that skews a little aggressive. During a time when the bodily freedom of pregnant people is under assault, and the rights of our trans brothers and sisters are being forcefully stripped from them, who wouldn’t want to pick the angriest, sexiest, loudest, oldest pink on the planet?
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