Millennials went wild for Outdoor Voices. Can it become cool again?

Washington Post

2 hours ago

In the 2010s, millions of millennials made the lurch into adulthood, bringing with us our famed earnestness and idealism as well as our gently tasteful Millennial Aesthetic. Declared immortal in 2020, pronounced dead 2021, said Aesthetic washed out our homes and gathering spaces in dusty pink and sage green, with soft arch-shaped accents and big, groovy plants. It wiped away maximalist commercial culture to replace it with pleasing, Instagram-friendly sans serif fonts and ad campaigns starring models with freckles.
A totem of this particular time: the undyed canvas Outdoor Voices tote, bearing its 'Technical Apparel for Recreation' tagline in a bubbly blue font. It bobbed around city blocks on the shoulders of women who sometimes also wore the brand's distinctive, pale-pastel-color-dipped leggings, or its tennis-adjacent Exercise Dress, or the baseball cap that bore its tail-waggingly cheery slogan, 'Doing Things.' By the end of the decade, you could route yourself to almost any major metro area's liveliest postgrad neighborhood just by Googling directions to the local Outdoor Voices.
Parsons School of Design graduate Ty Haney founded Outdoor Voices in 2013 at the age of 23. The former track athlete quickly rose to fame alongside it, a trajectory common to a whole class of young, stylish female founders of the then-burgeoning direct-to-consumer movement. Haney was pushed out of the role in 2020, but the company came under new ownership last year and announced last week that Haney had returned to the helm. (Also, as it happens, a common development lately for said class of female founders.) In the week since the announcement, a flurry of TikTok videos have materialized celebrating the return of 'Ty,' with whom fans seem to be on a parasocial first-name basis. The first collection of her second stint dropped Tuesday.
Outdoor Voices 1.0 was earnest, it was friendly, it made the pursuit of health feel fun. It was, in many ways, an ur-millennial brand, free of irony and determinedly welcoming. But it worked the first time because it was — to borrow a then-buzzword — disruptive. Now Haney faces the tricky assignment of once again standing out in an athleisure market over which Outdoor Voices has undeniably exerted an influence.
Back in 2013, workout gear was 'like, shiny black Spandex and superhuman-looking,' Haney told me this week. 'I wanted to go the other way, with neutrals and texture, things that would integrate nicely into your daily wardrobe.' So in the early years, Outdoor Voices' matte color palette largely consisted of light, creamy hues called 'oatmeal' and 'ash' and 'beach' and 'white sand.' Even the more saturated tones had names such as 'dandelion' and 'evergreen,' and the high neck- and waistlines of most OV garments gave even their body-hugging high-compression workout sets a sweetly modest affect.
Today, if something gets described, or derided, as 'millennial-coded,' chances are it looks like Outdoor Voices: 'It definitely set the tone in a lot of ways for that era, in terms of, like, 'clean and simple,'' Haney said, then added, laughing, 'and sans serif.'
At the time, its conviction that exercise didn't have to be punishing — Haney fondly remembers an ad campaign built entirely around dog-walking — won over legions of shoppers. More came into the fold when the brand began offering community events such as group hikes and fun runs. And still others, myself (25 at the time, married only to my gym membership, regularly washing sweaty yoga clothes to the point of disintegration) included, got converted just by the shocking durability of the clothes. Technical apparel for recreation, indeed.
In some ways, 2025 America might seem like a perfect climate for the return of OG OV. Gen Z women are carrying their Owala FreeSip water bottles (gentle colors, sans serif font) to the Pilates studio after work instead of meeting up for happy hour. Now, though, the athleisure market is flooded with Exercise Dress copycats and candy-colored two-piece compression sets. (And the latter feel 'a little tired,' Haney quipped.) Not to mention brand-sponsored run clubs and yoga events.
After the announcement of Haney's return, Outdoor Voices released the first preview image of her new collection: a black zip-up hoodie with a cursive, bedazzled 'Doing Things,' a notion that would have sounded like parody — or blasphemy — in 2015, given Outdoor Voices' famously understated look at the time. But a decade later, as Gen Z gleefully revives the gaudy, goofy styles of the early 2000s, the concept feels on-trend, if not on-brand. ('What in the Juicy Couture Y2K is going on right now,' replied a chorus of TikTok reaction videos.) Among the other new offerings are looser-fitting variations on the Exercise Dress in black and white, shorts and workout bras in vibrant canary yellow, and grass-green and pastel cardigans made of a cotton-cashmere blend. The collection's single style of leggings is a similarly Y2K-invoking black capri.
This new Outdoor Voices has 'more details' and is 'more fashion-driven,' Haney said. 'I think the whole ecosystem of activewear brands has gotten a little bit boring and plain and bland.'
In Haney's absence, Outdoor Voices was displaced from dominance by brands such as Alo and Vuori, whose workoutwear is frequently photographed in settings that suggest $300-a-month fitness club memberships and luxe beach getaways ('I am somewhat shocked that the '[fitness as] recreation' path is still so wide open for us to own,' Haney mused) and tend to offer a surfeit of earth tones alongside one or two bolder accent colors. Their muted 2020s color palettes, arguably, are a downstream effect of Outdoor Voices' muted 2010s color palette, though 2010s OV looks Lisa Frank-esque in comparison. Haney wants the brand to once again lead athleisure in a new direction. So rhinestones and capri pants and loud fabrics may be what's required for Outdoor Voices 2.0 to stand out in a post-Outdoor Voices 1.0 world.
Still, a certain subset of women might be content to order those 1.0 staples from Haney forever if she were to keep making them, buying back pieces of their youth. 'Outdoor Voices is making a comeback. And it feels like 2019 again,' one New Yorker rejoiced on TikTok. In Los Angeles, another user mimed blowing cobwebs off a blue 'Doing Things' cap.
And one woman who had posted in jubilation in response to 'Ty' 'rising from the ashes' posted again a few days later: 'Just dusted off this vintage, archival, authentic Outdoor Voices exercise dress,' read the caption. In a polka-dot version, she posed whimsically for a moment before slurping her iced coffee and pushing a bassinet stroller out of frame.