Update: On September 14, for nearly $368 million dollars.

It was supposed to represent the future of the office: in 2018, REI broke ground on a corporate headquarters intended to embody its company culture. The eight-acre campus, in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, was imagined as a playground of outdoor amenities, including a fire pit and a blueberry bog. Sleek garage-style doors would let air into the office, while courtyards blooming with native plants would serve as alfresco conference rooms. The Wall Street Journal 鈥渢he most outdoorsy HQ ever.鈥� Fast Company joked that REI was building 鈥�.鈥� Move-in was slated for summer 2020.

But now the future of the office may be no office, and instead of taking up residence in Bellevue, REI is responding to the pandemic by putting its never used, nearly finished HQ for an undisclosed sum. 鈥淭he dramatic events of 2020 have challenged us to reexamine and rethink every aspect of our business and many of the assumptions of the past,鈥� CEO Eric Artz in a video call last Wednesday.

Coming as it does after months of cuts鈥擱EI roughly 300 corporate employees in April and 400 retail employees in July鈥攖he decision could be a sign that the company needs to raise cash to retain its remaining workforce. Or the sharp pivot could be an indication that REI, the first major outdoor retailer to follow in the footsteps of 听补苍诲听 by declaring remote work a central part of its future, is thinking a step ahead of its peers.

Most likely, there鈥檚 truth in both interpretations. In an interview with 国产吃瓜黑料, REI鈥檚 chief customer officer, Ben Steele, emphasized the strategic benefits of the decision while acknowledging the need to recoup the spring鈥檚 losses. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important to replenish the balance sheet so that we can be prepared for the storms ahead,鈥� he says.

REI that it would suffer a 30 percent drop in revenue compared to the previous year. Since then, most of its 162 stores have reopened, and people driven outdoors in search of safe fun have created what Steele calls听鈥渦nprecedented demand鈥� for everything from boats to bikes to camping gear. Though a strong summer won鈥檛 fully make up for a spring of what outdoor-industry experts told 国产吃瓜黑料 were 鈥�jaw dropping鈥� losses, REI has revised its financial predictions in a more optimistic direction. 鈥淲e went from asking questions about what we needed to do to stabilize听to asking what decisions we can make to help us build our future,鈥� Steele says.

That future will benefit from an influx of capital whenever REI sells its headquarters, he听says. Several buyers, including Facebook, are , according to听the Seattle Times. REI hasn鈥檛 announced what it spent to build its offices and won鈥檛 comment on a possible sales price other than to say that the company expects 鈥渁 positive return on our four-year investment.鈥� It seems fair to ask whether the new age of remote work might be a less than ideal time to put a corporate campus on the market, but Steele says听that REI 鈥渨ill look for and expect premium pricing.鈥� In the years to come, the company envisions allowing employees to 鈥渇lex鈥� between working remotely and commuting to one of three smaller satellite听spaces in the Seattle area.

Some of the savings from downsizing will be directed toward meeting the new forms of demand that the pandemic has brought into play. 鈥淎s a lot of shopping and transactional behavior moved online, we鈥檝e seen places where we need to improve,鈥� Steele says. 鈥淩EI is known for its in-store expertise and experience, so we鈥檙e thinking about things like virtual outfitting to see: Can you have that experience online? Curbside pickup is not something that we see going away鈥攑eople like the convenience. There are ways we want to invest to make that better for customers听and also for employees.鈥�

It鈥檚 also impossible to say how far away the post-pandemic future remains鈥攁nother reason that REI may be making the right move by unloading an expensive asset. 鈥淭here are a lot of unknowns in the next year or two,鈥� points out Jessica Wahl, executive director of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable trade association. Even if demand for outdoor gear is high, no one knows for sure how the pandemic will continue to depress spending power听or disrupt the supply chains that retailers rely on for products. 鈥淐ompanies are making budget cuts that are not indicative of their health today but are setting them up for success if that health changes,鈥� Wahl says. 鈥淵ou have to plan for what it looks like if things get really bad.鈥�

With remote work the only option for many businesses at this time, it鈥檚 not hard to imagine that other outdoor retailers may soon follow REI鈥檚 example. 鈥淩EI is a leader in our industry,鈥� says Lise听Aangeenbrug, executive director of the Outdoor Industry Association. 鈥淎ny time they make a decision like this, it impacts everyone, including their vendors, who will think, Well, if REI did this, should I?鈥�

REI鈥檚 plan is on trend with the future of office work that experts across many fields have begun to predict. In for the Harvard Business Review, a group of researchers at the architecture and design firm HLW argued that companies should seek ways to balance the benefits of remote work鈥攊ncreased flexibility, freedom from commuting鈥攚ith the fact that 鈥減eople will still need places where they can come together, connect, build relationships, and develop their careers.鈥� The authors propose that satellite offices represent an ideal compromise, both because their small size supports close collaboration听and because, 鈥渇rom a resilience perspective,鈥� they provide more places where people can work through natural disasters, power outages, and other disruptions.

Ultimately, Steele argues that instituting flexible policies vis-脿-vis geography might fit REI鈥檚 culture better than any headquarters, even one created听with a blueberry bog. 鈥淲e鈥檙e a national organization, and life outdoors looks different in, say, Atlanta than it does in Seattle听than it does in Minneapolis or L.A.,鈥� he says. By necessity, the inventory in any given REI store reflects the natural landscape of the place where it鈥檚 located, but the company鈥檚 corporate employees have never been likewise dispersed. Steele points out: 鈥淭o have that model stretch into HQ is an interesting possibility.鈥�

The post Why REI Is Selling Its Brand-New Headquarters appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Since the lockdown began, I鈥檝e been dreaming about traveling. During waking hours, the fact that I can鈥檛 predict the timing of my next trip ranks low on my list of concerns. But in sleep, I find myself lining up to board planes, sprinting to catch trains, rattling on buses through unfamiliar landscapes. I am always in transit; I never fully arrive. Last night听I dreamed I was waiting for a connecting flight when I realized I鈥檇 lost my luggage.听A few weeks ago, my subconscious arranged a vacation with my parents, who, in reality, I haven鈥檛 seen since February. We鈥檇 just hugged hello in a crowded airport terminal when my dream self remembered the existence of the novel coronavirus. I felt a sickening dread, and then I woke up.

My unconscious mind seems to be telling me that, after eight weeks of leaving my apartment as little as possible, I鈥檓 more restless than I鈥檝e let myself admit. It鈥檚 a problem that anyone working from home should feel lucky to have. Still, it may explain the enthusiasm I felt in early April, when I learned that Airbnb was offering what it calls Online Experiences: virtual cooking classes, fitness sessions, and other quirky forays led by hosts of听odd expertise all over the world and听conducted via the video-conferencing app听Zoom听for the distraction and amusement of people who find themselves bored, anxious, and homebound.

Before the emergence of COVID-19, I had plans to report on the company鈥檚 original, in-real-life听version, Airbnb Experiences, for 国产吃瓜黑料. as Airbnb Trips, then later rebranded, Experiences is its attempt to plant a flag in the tour economy that occupies a significant听share of vacationers鈥� budgets. (Sixty percent or more of travel spending goes to activities and restaurants, .) Just as Airbnb allows people to turn their ordinary homes into ad hoc hotels, Experiences encourages them to convert their zany passions and pastimes into walking tours, cooking classes, and other pursuits.听That personal twist is a hallmark of Airbnb Experiences, and it sets听it apart from the offerings of a mass-market tour company.听

However, two years after Airbnb rebranded Trips as Experiences, the division is still losing money, according to . Airbnb declined to speak on record for this story, but CEO Brian Chesky鈥攚ho has ambitions of听turning the company into a full-service online travel agency with,听鈥攕eems committed to Experiences as a cornerstone of his company鈥檚 future.听

Now听the听pandemic has halted tourism indefinitely. Before the arrival of COVID-19, Airbnb had planned to go public by the end of the year.听Chesky that he remains 鈥渧ery confident鈥� that Airbnb will still have an IPO in 2020.听But this week,听the company听announced layoffs of of its staff. , Chesky told employees听that 2020 revenue is expected to be less than half of what it was in 2019.

Weeks before, the company听had听doubled down on Experiences. On April 8, it 听that hosts would be revising their offerings for an online format, creating 鈥渁 new way for people to connect, travel virtually and earn income during the COVID-19 crisis.鈥� At press time, the more than 150 Online Experience listings included a high-intensity workout with an Olympic rower, a cello concert with a professional musician, and cooking classes for everything from salsa to curry to homemade ricotta cheese.听

Until now, Airbnb鈥檚 success has been propelled by its promise to help any tourist, in the words of its most famous slogan, 鈥淟ive like a local.鈥� Its constellation of home shares let you burrow into whatever bohemian neighborhood you might aspire to call home. Airbnb Experiences caters to the same desire to access an authentic version of each place we visit. It听offers travelers a conduit to a city鈥檚 real residents, many of whom don鈥檛 work in tourism.听

By contrast, on the surface,听Online Experiences seems to provide a way out of a place rather than a way into one鈥攁n escape from our present听shelter-at-home situations rather than an introduction to a new town. Participants will see little of the destinations where each online experience is hosted. The appeal is the chance to break free, for an hour or 90 minutes, from the stress and monotony of our respective quarantines. But the lure of travel, in large part, is the opportunity to consider our own lives from a distance. I鈥檓 one of those people who cries in cars and on airplanes: it feels safe to let the feelings catch up to you when you鈥檙e in motion, as if you鈥檒l outstrip them by the time you arrive.听

A few days after Online Experiences launched, I eagerly signed up for four of the highest-rated sessions: a sangria-making workshop run by drag queens in Portugal, a magic lesson in England taught by a Guinness World Record鈥揾olding magician, a guided meditation in a sheep barn in Scotland, and a tour of Chernobyl, Ukraine, with a man who tends to the area鈥檚 packs of stray dogs. As I did so, I was conscious of hoping for more than a virtual change of setting. I was craving the perspective on life that vacations so often provide. The experience that most interests me is the one we鈥檙e all in the middle of鈥攂ut I鈥檝e found my own sense of this lockdown to be oddly slippery, as if the lack of day-to-day variation somehow translates to an absence of texture. I got the news that a family member could have been exposed to the virus, and then the news two days later that her test came back blessedly negative, while I sat in the same spot on the same couch. It鈥檚 been hard to hold on to these moments as distinct memories.听

And maybe that鈥檚 why I鈥檝e been dreaming about traveling: I want to get far enough away from this tense, listless life to听look back at it听and see where I am.

The post I Tried Airbnb’s Zaniest Online Experiences appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

鈥淯h-oh. Shit,鈥� says Tyler Haney, the 29-year-old CEO of apparel company Outdoor Voices, as her dog, Bowie, tucks his butt in the universal sign for bombs away. 鈥淟iteral shit! I don鈥檛 have鈥攚ill you hold him?鈥� Haney hands me the pink leash and sprints for a nearby trash can, where she finds a baggie that she uses to scoop the poop from the middle of the trail. 鈥�Ahhh, gross!鈥� she moans, discarding the twice-used piece of plastic and trotting back to reclaim her curly haired Havapoo. 鈥淚 totally forgot a bag. See,鈥� she gestures toward the back of her leggings, 鈥淚 need a pocket!鈥�

Her blonde hair still wet from the shower after her morning run, Haney is wearing her own design, a variation on the leggings that launched her brand in 2014, with color blocks contoured at flattering angles. She鈥檚 sporting new spring colors: blue with pale ballet pink. We鈥檝e been walking one of her favorite trails, which crisscrosses the Colorado River鈥檚 path through downtown Austin, Texas, where Haney has lived full-time for about a year. We鈥檙e talking about her plans to release leggings with more generous pockets鈥攖he ultimate uniform for hiking and dog walking. Haney recently learned that employees at one large outdoor gear company refer to athletic dilettantes as 鈥渄og walkers,鈥� a detail that tickles her, since Outdoor Voices considers dog owners its perfect demographic: They may not be marathoners, but they鈥檝e made a commitment to getting out every day.

Haney has positioned Outdoor Voices as the approachable alternative to activewear titans such as Nike and Under Armour. Instead of exhorting athletes to 鈥渏ust do it,鈥� Outdoor Voices asks fans to post on social about , which is 鈥渂etter than not Doing Things,鈥� whether you鈥檙e off riding horses or just watering the plants. In place of performance, Haney talks about 鈥渕oderation and ease and humor and delight,鈥� and instead of marketing that hinges on winning, her brand emphasizes exercising in any capacity, 鈥渕oving your body for your mind.鈥�

It鈥檚 hard to imagine a better message for this moment in American culture, when fitness is trendy, and so is sportswear. Ensembles appropriate for doing sun salutations have become acceptable attire for doing almost anything. The rise of athleisure鈥攁 portmanteau Haney loathes because, she says, 鈥渋t sounds lethargic鈥ike I鈥檓 a lump on my couch鈥濃�攈as created a huge opening for activewear that looks like chic casual wear. Between 2011 and 2016, the market for athletic gear of the entire clothing business, growing about seven times as fast as the overall apparel industry.

In this climate, Outdoor Voices鈥� first selling points were aesthetic: Its signature blues and grays are more versatile than Nike neon, and its minimalist crop tops work as well under a jean jacket as they do on a jog. In 2014, Haney was ahead of the curve with of collapsing the space between 鈥測our gym life and your life-life.鈥� Four years later, everyone is talking about dressing for health and comfort at all times, and Outdoor Voices has grown to an 80-person business, raised $56.5 million in venture capital funding, and opened six brick-and-mortar stores, with ten more reportedly on the way this year, including Boston and Marin locations in summer 2018.

鈥淥utdoor Voices is kind of the reason that athleisure has taken off and a pioneer of the notion of wearing athletic apparel when not engaged in athletic activity,鈥� says , founder of the fashion blog and an investor in Outdoor Voices. 鈥淭his is a market they helped to create.鈥� This is a strong鈥攁nd somewhat debatable鈥攕tatement. No attempt to trace the rise of athleisure should neglect the role of Lululemon, which was founded in 1998 and has done more to sell Americans on stretchy pants for all occasions than any other company. Fashion designers鈥� pursuit of sportswear collaborations has also been advancing the trend for more than a decade, since Stella McCartney first partnered with Adidas in 2005. But in a moment when activewear has cornered more of the market than ever, Outdoor Voices has come to epitomize the possibility of dressing for comfort in clothes that confer a nonchalant brand of cool.

The booming athleisure business is a mixed blessing, however. Haney has called the impossibility of escaping that label possibly the 鈥溾�� she鈥檚 faced so far. That might sound dramatic until you consider just how many brands are offering comfy leggings that are perfectly adequate for #DoingThings like lounging, working, or walking the dog. Even Outdoor Voices鈥� signature look isn鈥檛 as revelatory as it used to be: color blocking is now a trend, no small thanks to Haney. In January, Haney publicly accused fitness apparel company Bandier of knocking off her clothes, and angry Outdoor Voices fans flooded the competitor鈥檚 comments. for fashion news site Racked, reporter Eliza Brooke 鈥渢he fallibility of brands relying on aesthetics as a way to differentiate themselves鈥� when a gray area is all that separates copycat from trend. Bandier CEO Neil Boyarsky was unrepentant, telling Racked, 鈥淣o one owns color blocking.鈥�

Haney has been wrestling with other pressures, too鈥攏amely how to shape her brand鈥檚 identity. Last spring, Outdoor Voices released a new material called Tech Sweat, developed by its designers and exclusive to the brand, for intense exercise too 鈥渉igh-sweat鈥� for its original fabric, Textured Compression. Tech Sweat sales have quickly become the fastest-growing part of Outdoor Voices鈥� business, and the company is responding by designing more products with the lighter, stretchier fabric. In April, the brand started releasing clothing for specific activities, beginning with running; a tennis and golf line will follow in June. Is Outdoor Voices moving away from 鈥渆ase鈥� and 鈥渧ersatility鈥� toward more focused excellence? Haney emphasizes that her definition of #DoingThings remains as broad as ever, but argues that by designing for single sports, she can serve the people doing them at the extreme end of the spectrum.

But Tech Sweat and the new running collection are also a way of 鈥渟hifting from being known as athleisure to being known for technical apparel,鈥� says Mariel O鈥橞rien, director of product strategy at Outdoor Voices. The new direction points to an interesting conundrum for activewear brands in the age of athleisure. As sporty aesthetics become untethered from actual athletics, how do you prove to consumers that your brand is truly all about exercise? Is it wiser to cater to the broad market of casual wearers or to target devotedly active users鈥攐r, in an increasingly crowded field, does a company need both to survive?

Haney insists that Outdoor Voices is defined by how its clothes function more than how they look. 鈥淚 hate fashion, really,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 feel comfortable, from a business perspective, building a fashion brand. Fashion doesn鈥檛 mean much for people anymore鈥攅xperiences do, and activity is experience.鈥� Every aesthetic eventually goes out of vogue, and Haney wants to stake her brand on more stable ground. 鈥淚f Outdoor Voices is with you when you鈥檙e experiencing that runner鈥檚 high, that dopamine release, there鈥檚 a chemical bond there. 罢丑补迟鈥檚 what I鈥檓 excited to build the business around.鈥�

Outdoor Voices鈥� origin story is essentially Haney鈥檚 life story, a narrative so perfectly tailored to fit her product that respinning it feels a little like lifting ad copy. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado, where 鈥渁ctivity is seamlessly part of what you do,鈥� Haney says. Many childhood days included a hike up the Flatirons or a bike ride to get ice cream, and a good outfit left her free to move and sweat. Haney was an active child and a talented runner, the kind of irrepressible kid who never remembered to use her 鈥渋ndoor voice鈥濃�攁 parental refrain that produced the name of her brand (and one that appears in virtually every piece about her success). Haney rode horses, waking up at 5:00 a.m. to hit the barn before school, then headed to basketball and track practice after class. 鈥淪he always wanted to beat the boys,鈥� says her mom, Jenn Haney. Tyler loved wearing Nike, which made her feel, she says, 鈥渓ike the fastest, strongest, most-likely-to-win athlete out there.鈥�

By the end of high school, Haney was hearing from coaches who wanted to recruit her to run collegiate hurdles, but something in her resisted the most obvious path. She had a creative side, which she worried would find little expression in her life as a track star. The Haney kids grew up 鈥渟urrounded by color,鈥� Jenn says; for a while, Tyler鈥檚 parents and an aunt and uncle teamed up in a clothing business, and she grew up dabbling in sewing and painting. 鈥淪he was always someone that started and finished something,鈥� Jenn says. 鈥淣othing she did sat in a corner.鈥� The family鈥檚 roots were in the west, but Tyler moved east after high school, to Boston, where she spent a gap year serving margaritas at the Border Caf茅 in Harvard Square鈥攁 job she credits with teaching her 鈥渢o relate to all kinds of people鈥濃�攁nd then to New York City, where she enrolled in a joint design and management program at Parsons School of Design.

In Manhattan, Haney鈥檚 athletic side had no outlet. Without teammates or coaches, she says, 鈥淚 woke up in my senior year and thought, 鈥業 have no motivation to be active. What the hell?鈥欌�� It was her first taste of a feeling she realized many people must have often. At the same time, Haney鈥檚 love affair with Nike was souring. Jogging on the West Side Highway, she鈥檇 glance down at herself in black spandex and muscle-mapping neon and wonder why she looked 鈥渟traight out of a Transformers movie鈥� when she was running nine-minute miles. The disconnect sapped her motivation鈥攂ut it also got her thinking about other people who might feel excluded by the hardcore aesthetic of traditional fitness brands, 鈥減eople who walk into Under Armour and see Steph Curry on walls and think, 鈥槹粘蟛钩兮�檚 never going to be me.鈥欌�� Haney saw an opening for a brand with a look and message that gave people permission to have fun jogging two miles instead of winning a race.

The product would be 鈥渉uman, not superhuman鈥� and for 鈥渆xercisers, not athletes,鈥� but Haney would attack it with the mindset of a star competitor, not satisfied until she could play against the big brands that had shaped her own sense of self. She went deep on synthetic yarns, buying bolts of fabric that she stashed under her bunk bed, looking for the perfect balance of stretch, compression, and the quality to endure countless wears and washes. Haney found patternmakers to piece together her designs and sent the sample garments to family and friends with the directive to 鈥渢ake this and go do things,鈥� and then give feedback on the function and fit.

She found early on that people, especially men, who listened to her talk about taking on Nike and Under Armour thought she was crazy. But women who tried the clothes had a different reaction. According to Haney, the compression fabric was designed to be flattering,听no matter how you stretch and move, and women reported feeling good about the bodies they saw in the mirror when sporting her styles. They felt more confident than usual about working out in her clothes. 鈥淚 would go into a lot of guy investors鈥� offices, and no one would get it,鈥� Haney says, remembering that she was told no around 70 times. 鈥淏ut I started sending it to their wives ahead of the meetings, and that was really where the unlock came from.鈥�

By 2014, Haney had five versatile pieces on sale in a handful of small boutiques. The company鈥檚 first big break came when a buyer for J.Crew noticed the brand鈥檚 understated, cool-girl silhouette鈥攈igh-waisted leggings and a crop top鈥攁nd suggested Outdoor Voices for the retailer鈥檚 first-ever foray into activewear. Later, Haney staged collaborations with other fashion heavyweights, including Man Repeller and the French minimalist brand A.P.C. 鈥淭yler鈥檚 focus on fabric is what makes her a fashion player,鈥� Jean Touitou, founder and creative director at A.P.C., told me in an email. (Touitou is friends with Haney and an investor in her brand via A.P.C. Holding.) He describes Outdoor Voices as an exception to the aesthetic affront that he often considers activewear. 鈥淭here are two ways to wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants: the ugly and the beautiful, period,鈥� Touitou told me. 鈥淭he sweat gear thing shouldn鈥檛 be synonymous with laziness.鈥�

鈥淚 don鈥檛 know why all this stuff is so ugly,鈥� Haney says of her competition, laughing. 鈥淟ike, hellooo. Use nice color palettes and textures. I guess that鈥檚 why Outdoor Voices has really resonated with the fashion crowd.鈥� Outdoor Voices has been labeled 鈥溾�� and 鈥渢he fitness brand .鈥� 鈥淚t was a neat thing to be championed by the fashion crowd,鈥� Haney says, though she makes sure to add, 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 my strategy.鈥�

Of course, Outdoor Voices鈥� aesthetic doesn鈥檛 stand out from the field like it used to鈥攆ashionable activewear is increasingly easy to find. When I called fashion marketing consultant Judith Russell, she praised Haney鈥檚 business sense and style but judged her 鈥渘o different than so many others playing in an extremely competitive marketplace.鈥� The field is increasingly crowded because of entrepreneurs like Haney, Russell says. She understood Haney鈥檚 desire to emphasize performance in addition to style. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got plenty of girls ordering Fabletics鈥濃�擪ate Hudson鈥檚 activewear line鈥斺�渨hich is known for being cute, fashionable, and affordable.鈥� Outdoor Voices, on the other hand, is 鈥減ositioned as premium, so you need unique fabrics. You need the quality鈥t鈥檚 a great brand, but there are a lot of really great brands.鈥�

In the past year, Haney has moved away from New York and the fashion world鈥�1,700 miles away, to Austin, a city she calls 鈥渢he most recreational place I鈥檝e ever been.鈥� Haney opened her first brick-and-mortar store there in 2014, in what the chairman of her board cheerfully calls 鈥渢he worst retail location in the world,鈥� on a peaceful residential street. Haney shifted the bulk of her operations southwest last year. Austin reminds her of Boulder, with hiking and biking trails threaded through downtown, but in Boulder, everyone you pass 鈥渋s hauling ass,鈥� whereas in Austin, 鈥渁ll ages and shapes and sizes of people are jogging with strollers and walking their dogs. It鈥檚 the epitome of the lifestyle Outdoor Voices is catering to.鈥�

Located just off East Cesar Chavez Street in rapidly gentrifying East Austin (within walking range of not one but two caf茅 cum bike shops), Outdoor Voices鈥� offices are full of custom plywood furniture in the same minimalist mode as the rainbows of clothing hanging around the room. In Haney鈥檚 world, style is functional in every detail. The first time we sat down to talk, her attention flicked for a moment to her blue conference room table. 鈥淲e need to relaminate this,鈥� she commented. 鈥淚t bothers me that fingerprints stick.鈥�

The inner workings of Haney鈥檚 visual mind are evident all around her office: She collages mood boards for herself and her team to envision the direction of their designs. Images of high art鈥擩ames Turrell installations; the paintings of Monica Garza, which depict curvy women of color in joyful motion鈥攎ingle with characters from pop culture, like Sailor Mars and the Energizer Bunny. Shots from the 1970s and 鈥�80s are a recurring theme. Haney鈥檚 aesthetic isn鈥檛 retro, but she loves the era鈥檚 kitschy, colorful embrace of fitness.

She鈥檚 especially inspired by Jane Fonda鈥檚 workout attire.听In Fonda鈥檚 era, embracing leggings and leotards as everyday fashion allowed people鈥攅specially women鈥攖o convey that they valued feeling good in their clothes over anyone else鈥檚 feelings about how they looked. Observers of fashion have been saying for years that athleisure is a form of revolt against a culture obsessed with policing women鈥檚 appearances. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the quintessential 鈥業鈥檓 going to dress for myself鈥� statement,鈥� V茅ronique Hyland for The Cut in 2014. Both Haney鈥檚 comfortable clothes and her deft branding suit the self-image that millennial women seem to be shopping for. She told me her goal is to 鈥渢ake you back to how you feel when you鈥檙e young, that fearlessness to try things you have as a kid.鈥� The women in Outdoor Voices鈥� promotional images usually look like they鈥檙e having too much fun to feel self-conscious. Where a classic Nike ad might show an athlete in midstride, alone with her determination, Outdoor Voices is all about group shots of women practicing backbends or dribbling balls midlaugh. If Outdoor Voices鈥� success is any indication, women aren鈥檛 just buying leggings. They鈥檙e hoping to buy听a better, more self-assured version of themselves.

It helps that Haney is an ideal avatar for the values attached to this mode of dress. Though Outdoor Voices has expanded into menswear, she cares most about designing 鈥渇or women, by women.鈥� As Outdoor Voices doubles down on performance, she wants the signature silhouettes to remain 鈥渇eminine.鈥� She says current projects include running skorts, exercise dresses, and high-support bras, since the original crop tops are tailored to the relatively flat-chested. Haney promotes the fact that her team is 78 percent female and prides herself on ad campaigns celebrating bodies of many shapes and sizes. She鈥檚 also, of course, a woman in business whose faith in her own ideas survived dozens of skeptical, mostly male investors, and a 29-year-old CEO whose team left the center of the fashion universe to follow her across the country. If athleisure has succeeded, in part, by offering women a small, consumer-friendly form of power, then it stands to reason that Haney, with her message about #DoingThings and her story about doing exactly what she sets her mind to, is herself a vital asset for her brand.

Haney has come up with her own term for what Outdoor Voices is making. From now on, it鈥檚 鈥渞ec wear,鈥� which Haney hopes captures both the 鈥渆scapism or joyfulness鈥� of a weekend camping in the woods and the midday exhale of a yoga class or a run. She wants this new taxonomy to convey that 鈥渨e are experts at technical product鈥濃�攖hat Outdoor Voices, at its core, isn鈥檛 about fashion. In the end, of course, this is just more nimble branding. Whatever Haney calls her clothes, she still has to compete against the ever-strengthening field that her company helped to create. Luckily, she鈥檚 always loved a good race.

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Looking back on her early days in her sport, professional climber Angie Payne, 32, is struck by how twisted her definition of health once was. She started climbing at age 11 and quickly became, in her words, 鈥渙bsessed鈥�: she loved the feeling that when she got on the wall, her body became graceful and intuitive in a way she鈥檇 never experienced before鈥攖hat some part of her naturally understood what to do. She had talent. She was also a skinny kid, which helps in a sport that puts the strength of your muscles in direct ratio to the body mass they have to haul toward the sky.

Payne stayed naturally thin when she hit puberty, even though her diet growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, consisted mostly of 鈥渟ugar, butter, and some veggies here and there.鈥� In her mid-teens, she started thinking about eating healthier鈥攏ot so much because she wanted to lose weight, but because it made her feel like she was getting serious about climbing, pushing her Midwestern adolescent life in the direction of her lofty athletic dreams. 鈥淚 remember the first thing I did was that I started eating a lot more salad,鈥� says Payne. 鈥淪alad in my family was iceberg lettuce with sugar dressing and a lot of croutons.鈥� Before long, she says, 鈥淚鈥檇 come home from the gym, and all I鈥檇 eat after climbing the whole night was a salad鈥� with 鈥渘o protein, nothing.鈥� In her mind, salad equated to healthy, but looking back, she says, 鈥淩eally, that was the beginning.鈥�

After graduating from high school, Payne moved to Boulder, Colorado, enrolled in college to appease her parents, and devoted herself to competitive climbing. On her own for the first time, she was lonely and depressed鈥攆eelings she channeled into not only her training but also an increasingly rigid diet. The list of foods she deemed 鈥渉ealthy鈥� shrank and shrank. Breakfast became a handful of granola, lunch a chicken breast, dinner a salad. She avoided scales鈥攖he moment she started quantifying her weight loss, some part of her felt she鈥檇 have to admit she had a problem. But she could feel the changes in the body: Her skin dried out, and her hair felt like straw. She stopped getting her period. But on the climbing wall, her newfound lightness was 鈥渁ddicting,鈥� she says. She started winning one national competition after another. She remembers one day when she tried a difficult move on crimps鈥攕mall holds that the climber can grasp only with her fingertips鈥攁nd felt like she was 鈥渏ust flowing over the boulder,鈥� weightless.

Payne wanted to lose weight to win, but once her eating disorder took hold, winning ceased to make her happy. Instead, it became the only thing standing between her and the emotional tailspin that came with a loss. She felt stuck: If she acknowledged she had a problem, she would have to put on weight, and if she gained any weight, she was convinced she鈥檇 lose her edge in competitions. The thought of losing filled her with despair.

One night at her parents鈥� house, in the spring of 2004, Payne stepped on a scale for the first time in months and learned that she weighed less than 100 pounds, down from about 120 at the beginning of the school year. 鈥淚 remember looking in the mirror,鈥� she says. She took in the dramatic changes to her body. She鈥檇 never imagined that she鈥檇 lost so much weight. 鈥淚 remember thinking, 鈥極h my god, this is really, really unhealthy.鈥欌��

Payne would eventually be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, but only after she hid her eating disorder for the better part of a year, even, to some extent, from herself. In the world of professional climbing鈥攁nd, more generally, across endurance sports鈥擯ayne鈥檚 obsession with eating 鈥減erfectly鈥� didn鈥檛 look as abnormal as it should. , or about 10 percent of the population, suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, and many more exhibit signs of disordered eating. The incidence is believed to be slowly rising.

Efforts to measure the prevalence of eating disorders among athletes have returned varying results, but it鈥檚 generally accepted that the rate is higher than in the general population. of elite athletes in Norway found that 13.5 percent had eating disorders, including 9 percent of male endurance athletes and 24 percent of female athletes. Athletes are under the same pressures as everyone else to conform to a societal standard of thinness and beauty, but they also contend with their own set of risks, according to Ron Thompson, a specialist who has consulted on the topic of eating disorders with the NCAA and the . Those triggers turn out to be the same traits we admire in athletes, the mental assets that allow the human body to perform seemingly superhuman feats. For example, 鈥淗ow many people can run several miles after not having eaten for several days?鈥� Thompson asks. For clinicians like Thompson, the battle begins with making coaches see these behaviors as dangerous, rather than as the essence of an athlete鈥檚 competitive edge.

Slowly, the world of endurance sports has begun to reckon with these dangers. As recently as the 1980s and 1990s, 鈥渁norexia wasn鈥檛 a term that was used very much,鈥� says former elite runner Lize Brittin, who . 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know what I had.鈥� Women runners, including Brittin, were among the earliest endurance athletes to speak openly about their struggles. Experts and advocates are currently working to expand the perception of who suffers from eating disorders. For years, clinicians focused on the female athlete triad, the idea that disordered eating is one of an interrelated set of problems, along with amenorrhea鈥攚hen a woman ceases to get her period鈥攁nd osteoporosis, both of which can result from malnutrition. This framework left no room for male athletes or for many of the worst consequences that can come from eating disorders, such as compromised immunity, heart problems, or organ failure. In 2014, the the term 鈥溾�� in its official statements with the more inclusive term 鈥渞elative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S)鈥�; in 2015, .

Today, the conversation about eating disorders in endurance sports increasingly includes men鈥檚 voices as well as women鈥檚 and the testimony of swimmers, cyclists, skiers, and climbers in addition to runners. Former Olympic cyclist Mara Abbott established herself as one of the on the issue last summer. Nordic skier Hannah Halvorsen recruited other women in her sport to make a video about their struggles with body image. In the past year, moving personal essays about the topic from , , and have made waves online. Confronting this issue may require recognizing that the whatever-it-takes mentality and its attendant dangers are an inextricable part of elite endurance sports. 鈥淏eing a professional athlete isn鈥檛 actually a super-healthy thing to do,鈥� says Abbott. From training to nutrition, 鈥淚t鈥檚 always about managing stresses鈥攁bout how much a body can withstand.鈥�

One of the first things learned on day one of his career as a professional cyclist was that he needed to lose weight. It was 1995, and he鈥檇 just touched down in the Barcelona airport, having signed a contract with U.S. Postal Service. When the team director picked him up, 鈥淗e made fun of my baby fat straightaway,鈥� Hamilton recalls. 鈥淚 was like, 鈥榃hat鈥檚 this about? I鈥檓 super skinny!鈥� I had no idea.鈥�

While female athletes, like women in general, are inculcated all their lives with the importance of thinness, male athletes are also bombarded with messages about their bodies. Some of the cyclists and runners I interviewed鈥攂oth men and women鈥攖old me they think coaches and directors on women鈥檚 teams have grown more attuned to the issue, and, in many cases, are more careful with what they say about an athlete鈥檚 weight or eating, while men鈥檚 coaches are years behind.

Early in his career, Hamilton thought of himself as a 鈥渂ig engine鈥濃�攕ure, he had bulkier muscles than some of his beanpole teammates, but that鈥檚 what powered him to victory in his best stage: the time trial. But after a few years of feeling his team鈥檚 nutritionists 鈥渆yeballing me every time I went up to get a cookie,鈥� and of hearing from coaches and more seasoned cyclists that he could really be a contender if he shed a few pounds, Hamilton took the advice to heart. 鈥淲hen I lost weight, I basically learned to climb,鈥� he told me. 鈥淭here was a time鈥濃�攁round 2003, when he placed fourth in the Tour de France鈥斺�渨hen I was one of the best climbers in the world.鈥�

Every spring and summer, the 5’8″ Hamilton would work to whittle himself down to about 130 pounds. 鈥淭he three months before the Tour were hell to get there,鈥� he says. He鈥檇 bike for six or seven hours, come home famished, and chug a Diet Coke as fast as he could. A Diet Coke, and maybe an apple, and 鈥測ou go from ravenous to 鈥榦kay, maybe I can go another hour now.鈥欌�� Once, after a hard training ride, Hamilton鈥檚 director gave him a handful of sleeping pills to help him 鈥渕ake it until dinner鈥� without eating. The message was, 鈥淚f you make it through the night, even better.鈥�

Hamilton describes these patterns as an eating disorder, though he was never technically diagnosed with one. At the same time, he believes achieving a skeletal physique did make him a better cyclist. Weight is only one of many factors in an athlete鈥檚 performance. But in races that are won and lost by a fraction of a second鈥攏ot only in cycling, but also in running, swimming, and skiing鈥攁thletes who fantasize about the perfect ratio between power and leanness usually find that the latter is easier to quantify and control.

When Jesse Thomas, an elite triathlete, ran for Stanford as a college student, every guy on his team seemed to want to lose weight. He says, 鈥淲e had this joke: 鈥極h man, I鈥檓 so hungry I鈥檓 going to go take a nap.鈥� To a certain extent, maybe that made me feel better, like, 鈥業t鈥檚 not that big a deal. Everyone鈥檚 doing it.鈥欌�� Thomas struggled with injuries throughout his college running career but never connected his body鈥檚 breakdowns with his efforts to feed it as little as possible. Though he was never diagnosed, Thomas now considers his behavior typical of bulimia nervosa: He imposed a rigid diet on himself, mentally trying to 鈥渃lamp down clamp down clamp down,鈥� he says, until 鈥渆very once and a while, I would crack and binge eat a ton, usually the stuff I was depriving myself of鈥濃�攕ugars and fat, cookies and ice cream. Then, Thomas says, he would purge by starving himself for the next 24 to 36 hours, sometimes adding extra runs until he had worked his way back to a calorie deficit.

Though eating disorders are almost definitely more prevalent among women, they are thought to be .听, a cyclist who struggled with anorexia and bulimia, said that on his听teams, the mentality was, 鈥淲e鈥檙e men, we don鈥檛 have any problems.鈥� Even though East knew many of his friends were going through the same thing as he was, the unstated rule was,听鈥淵ou can鈥檛 discuss it.鈥�

The pressure to lose weight at all costs persists because many athletes who do so get faster鈥攕ometimes much faster鈥攆or a season or two. Usually, it doesn鈥檛 take long for these benefits to burn themselves out, but the devastating long-term consequences of an eating disorder can take years, or even decades, to manifest completely.

, a former U.S. track and field champion, told me that every season she ran college cross-country, 鈥渢here was always somebody that came seemingly out of nowhere and would win or podium, and then you鈥檇 never hear for them again.鈥� For a brief window, before the inevitable breakdown, these young women were so fleet-footed that Fleshman used to deride eating disorders as a form of cheating. 鈥淣ow I鈥檝e lived long enough to see that those short-term moments of success came at a great cost,鈥� she says.

For women, the clearest sign that an eating disorder has grown severe is usually amenorrhea鈥攁 warning that a lack of fat has caused the body to stop producing estrogen. Many coaches still see amenorrhea as 鈥減ar for course,鈥� or even as a natural sign that an athlete is training hard, according to Brittin, who is the co-author of a forthcoming book about training practices called . In fact, amenorrhea is a sign of what can quickly become irreversible damage, both to a woman鈥檚 reproductive system and to her bones: Estrogen plays a key role in regulating bone density, and shutting down a woman鈥檚 period, and with it her body鈥檚 supply of the hormone, during the developmentally crucial years of adolescence and early adulthood can result in osteoporosis later in life. In both men and women, this link between fat reserves, estrogen, and bone density also puts disordered eaters at high risk for stress fractures and other injuries.

A severe eating disorder can eventually cause organ failure; this is the most common cause of death for people with anorexia, according to Thompson. The number two cause, he says, is suicide. Eating disorders can be rooted in depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems or can tighten the choke hold of those conditions. For athletes, eating disorders are often desperate attempts to excel at the sports that comprise their entire lives and form the basis of their identities. East came up in the sport on a youth cycling team where he and his peers would compare how many ribs they could count or how many veins they could see in their legs. His team was 鈥渕y family,鈥� says East. 鈥湴粘蟛钩兮�檚 where I got my values from,鈥� and that culture prized two things, thinness and winning, which became synonymous in many riders鈥� heads. East鈥檚 bulimia worsened with his flagging performance, a vicious cycle that eventually found him throwing up almost every day. Trying to lose more weight became 鈥渕y last hope,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檇 put all my eggs in this basket of being a professional cyclist, and if I wasn鈥檛 a cyclist, I didn鈥檛 know what I was going to do.鈥� Finally, he did the only thing he could think of: quit not only his sport, but his whole life. He sold his belongings, took off on an around-the-world trip, 鈥済rew my hair past my shoulders, looked for what my purpose was.鈥澨齀t would be about two years before he found his way back to cycling.

Thomas also quit racing at the end of college; he was tired of getting hurt all the time. He spent five years working at a startup in San Francisco. Thomas and Fleshman, who had dated on and off in college, got married. By the time he started getting into triathlons, Thomas felt very distant from the person who starved himself until he broke and gorged on sweets in a dissociative haze. As he says, 鈥淚 no longer had 100 percent of my identity and self-worth wrapped into my performance as an athlete.鈥�

Payne can still remember how light she felt on her fingertips鈥攂ut also how weak she was in the depths of her eating disorder. In the years since, she鈥檚 developed a far more powerful climbing style, and the sport itself has also evolved to reward, and even require, more so-called 鈥渄ynamic movements鈥濃�攍ong leaps between handholds and other moves that force climbers to generate momentum. 鈥淢y body wouldn鈥檛 be capable of climbing in the way I do now if I was 20 pounds lighter,鈥� Payne says. 鈥淚 need this muscle. I need this weight. I need the body I have now to do the things I do with it.鈥�

For many athletes, recovery from eating disorders is about seeking equilibrium, even if it may look crude at first. As she began trying to address her eating disorder, cyclist Mara Abbott found herself stressing about whether she was 鈥減erfectly鈥� executing her recovery plan. Silencing those voices meant 鈥渂eing soft enough with myself to say, 鈥業t鈥檚 okay still have these triggers,鈥� but hard enough with myself to say, 鈥業t doesn鈥檛 matter how you do it. You have to eat enough to sustain yourself as an athlete and a person,鈥欌�� Abbott says. It was fine to get anxious and not be able to eat enough at dinner, for example鈥攁s long as she went back to her room and made up for it in cereal.

The benefits of recovery are cognitive as well as physical. Expending energy counting calories鈥攐r trying, in Thomas鈥� words, to 鈥渃lamp down鈥� on cravings and hunger pangs鈥攕aps an athlete鈥檚 mental toughness. 鈥淚f you want to be truly elite, you need鈥攕ome people call it cockiness鈥攂ut it鈥檚 confidence,鈥� says Fleshman. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e spending all your time thinking about nutrition and body image, that鈥檚 space that isn鈥檛 going to being mentally strong.鈥�

East told me that he races faster now than he did when he was 30 pounds lighter and training twice as much. 鈥淲hen I go to a race, I鈥檓 excited to be there, so I perform well,鈥� he says simply. 鈥淚 used to hate it. Now I want to do it.鈥�

For climber , the number she saw when she stepped on the scale in the morning used to make or break her day. 鈥淓verything had to be controlled, and everything had to be perfect,鈥� Harrington says, and if it wasn鈥檛鈥攊f she made one slipup over lunch, one mistake during a climb鈥攖hen 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 let go of all those little things enough to actually perform.鈥� Letting go in her life has helped Harrington relax in her climbing, too, making room for a kind of soft focus that allows her body鈥檚 natural intelligence to take over. Now, she says, 鈥渕ost often it鈥檚 when something is going wrong, or the conditions are bad, that I allow myself to relax enough to be successful.鈥� Harrington has come to love the feeling of 鈥渏ust letting things happen, letting the body move, letting it do the things you know how to do.鈥�

Payne still struggles with a tendency to obsess over her weight, to wonder if she鈥檚 carrying just a little extra muscle. When those thoughts run through her mind, 鈥淚 force myself to have the beer,鈥� she says, 鈥渢o eat a cupcake, enjoy myself a little bit.鈥� It puts something between her and those old demons鈥攁 reminder that she doesn鈥檛 define 鈥渉ealth鈥� in the same way anymore.

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