Fashion and fitness blog Fashercise adds e-commerce

Fashionable sportswear for women has been in the spotlight over recent months, Net-a-Porter launched its one-stop activewear hub, Net-a-Sporter in July, and luxury e-tailer Yoox are following with a dedicated “fashion-forward activewear” section in September, well there is a new kid on the

block, Fashercise, which is looking to appeal to women with its strong daily editorial offering and curated selection of activewear from young, independent designers.

Launched in 2013 as a blog by London-based Belgian duo, Alex Vanthournout and Camille Roegiers, Fashercise has been showcasing everything from the latest trainer launches to high-tech fitness options, as well as reviewing products, classes and introducing its readers to a host of new sportswear designers like British brand Charli Cohen, who was one of the first to sign up to the bloggers e-commerce site.

“I had just taken up running and was suddenly spending a lot of time in my sportswear. I started looking around for stylish options and writing about it on my blog, Alex Loves and realised a lot of girls were looking for the same thing,” explains Vanthournout. “Fashercise was created for girls like myself - not athletes, but real women who want to incorporate fitness and healthy living within their lives without having to compromise.”

Vanthournout added: “Quite early on I stumbled across a couple of young sportswear designers and felt like there wasn’t a platform out there that really represented them in a way I was used to from ‘normal’ fashion designers. As a blogger, I learned about the value of content, and really wanted to create a platform that seamlessly combined e-commerce and editorial, which was our main challenge.”

The e-commerce offering launched this week, along with a fresh new look to balance the shopping with the editorial, and features British brands including Monreal London, Lexie Sport, Every Second Counts and Lucas Hugh, as well as international names such as Dear Kate, Michi and Olympia Activewear, which it is the exclusively UK retailer for. Much like Net-a-Sporter, Fashercise has looked to feature clothing for a whole range of sporting activities from running to yoga or just to hit the gym in, as well as loungewear options with its selection of Zoe Karssen.

On the mix of brands, Roegiers, who has a background in fashion wholesale, said: “All our brands may be quite different but share a common ethos. They’re all about making a woman feel great about herself even when working out. Beautiful clothing has the ability to empower women and our designers all do exactly that.

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We believe a sportswear item shouldn’t necessarily just belong in a gym - you should feel so good wearing it, you want to wear it out regardless of working out. The Fashercise girl wants to be able to wear her pieces to work, or to the pub for a drink after her workout, but also wants them to be functional and technical.”

Fashercise launches e-commerce

Roegiers, added: “We are constantly on the lookout for new brands that complement our vision for highly fashionable, highly technical sportswear. We’re already actively searching for new labels to add to offering for next season. As well as the younger labels, we’d of course love to have the big brands like Nike and Adidas by Stella McCartney on board in the future.”

To coincide with the e-commerce launch, Fashercise is hosting a week-long celebration of its new-look website and designer offering with a pop-up at Boxpark, Shoreditch from August 25-31. As well as customers actually being able to discover its curated selection of brands in person, the duo have partnered with sports network, Voopy to offer free workout classes including a cardio class using Kangoo Jump shoes, a high intensity dance class, spinning, and yoga.

“As an online-only retailer, we wanted to launch our new site to the world in a way which allowed us to interact with our customers in person, a way to introduce ourselves and our brands to them in a relaxed and fun way,” explained Vanthournout. “Boxpark have been wonderfully accommodating to us - to get the support from a well-known company like Boxpark has been really valuable for us. Having our pop up there has definitely given us a lot of credibility within the industry.”

When asked if there were worried about competition from Net-a-Porter and Yoox, Roegiers said: “Not really, it just confirms to us that the market is ready for luxury sportswear. We are a bit more focused than the big retailers and the addition of our daily editorial content allows us to really develop a relationship with our customer, so we feel confident about our offering.”

The Fashercise pop-up will run from August 25-31 at Boxpark, Shoreditch.

Danielle Wightman-Stone

Images: Fashercise founders and their AW14 lookbook