Athleisure might look like a comfort trend, but it’s really just a modern expression of something much deeper: the evolution of leisure, status, and how we choose to use our time.
Ah, sweatpants. How we love thee. Is there anything better on a cold and dreary winter’s morning than passing over your jeans or suit pants in favour of something soft (and preferably fleece-lined)?
Just a few decades ago, a tracksuit was something you would only wear out of your house on casual Friday, or perhaps for a quick trip to the shops. But today, thanks to the rise of athleisure, sweatpants, hoodies and sneakers are welcome almost anywhere. What looks like something casual is really the latest version of a story that began when work first stopped filling every available hour of the day, and people were left with something unfamiliar to manage:
Time.
A moment before time
For most of human history, time didn’t come in neat, measurable blocks that could be traded, saved, or spent according to personal preference. Particularly in agrarian (aka farming) societies, where daily life followed the rhythms of seasons, weather patterns, and the unpredictable demands of land and livestock, the idea of “work-life balance” didn’t really exist.
Work bled into everything else, stretching across daylight hours and often beyond, leaving little room for anything that could be considered optional.
Leisure? To the working class of the 19th century, that was a foreign concept.
The Industrial Revolution (specifically the second one, which took place between 1870 and 1914) changed this dynamic in ways that extended well beyond machinery and production. As machines started replacing elements of human labour, they introduced a level of structure into daily life that redefined how people experienced time.
Imagine it: before, you were a farmworker, toiling away outside. You didn’t measure time per se, but you had an idea of where you were in the day based on the position of the sun and the shadows on the ground. Your work was marked by seasons, not hours. Then factory work came along, ushered you indoors and brought with it shifts, fixed hours, and clearer boundaries between labour and non-labour.
All of this change meant that, for the first time, large numbers of people had predictable stretches of the day that were not already claimed by work. What’s more, because machines sped up the process of human labour, there were now whole days that didn’t need to be devoted to work, that could instead be dedicated to rest.
Enter: the weekend
At the same time, mass production was reshaping the economic landscape by making everyday goods more affordable and widely available, reducing the cost of clothing, tools, and household items that had previously been expensive or labour-intensive to produce. This shift meant that wages, while still modest by modern standards, could stretch a little further than they had before.
Things became accessible. And with that accessibility came the possibility of saving small amounts of money, which, when combined with newly available free time, created the conditions for a different kind of life to emerge.
So what did people do with this combination of time and money?
They began to organise their free hours into activities that were structured, social, and increasingly visible, moving beyond rest into participation in things that could be shared and repeated. Parks became gathering spaces. Clubs formed around common interests. Informal games evolved into organised sports with rules, teams, and spectators.
Life is for living
This was the start of leisure as we understand it today. And once leisure takes shape, it becomes something that can be recognised, compared, and eventually used to signal something about the people engaging in it.
Sport, in particular, became one of the clearest expressions of this shift in priorities, transforming from loosely organised pastimes into formalised systems that carried meaning beyond the activity itself. Football, cricket, and rugby developed into institutions with their own audiences, creating a shared language that people could understand whether they were playing or watching. Soon, towns were competing against each other in organised matches, races and games. The first hints of national pride were in the air.
At first, the distinction between workwear and leisurewear was driven by practical concerns, as different activities (like playing tennis or riding a bicycle) required garments that allowed for movement and comfort. But that practical distinction quickly took on additional meaning. Because the moment you have clothing that is specific to an activity, you also have a visible marker that separates that activity from the rest of your life.
Time for a wardrobe change
Changing from daywear into sportswear signalled that you had stepped into a different mode, one that was defined less by necessity and more by choice. This is where leisure begins to function as a form of status.
In earlier periods, status had been tied closely to land ownership, property, and the ability to maintain things that served no immediate productive purpose (like the lawns that I mentioned in last week’s article). By the early 20th century, however, there was a gradual shift towards how time was used as an indicator of position. Being able to spend time on activities that did not directly generate income suggested a level of security and control.
Leisure, in other words, became a status symbol. Not as overt a display of wealth as gold or diamonds, but a consistent one, embedded in daily life and reinforced through the activities people chose to engage in and the way they presented themselves while doing so.
Sport made that signal visible in a way that few other activities could. To play a game or attend one required time that could not be easily justified in purely economic terms, which is precisely why it mattered – it demonstrated that your life was not entirely dictated by work. There was space for something unnecessary, something frivolous and fun, something chosen rather than required.
The clothing associated with these sports – designed for movement, less restrictive, more comfortable – began to carry that meaning beyond the field or court where it was originally used.
Looking the part
By the mid-20th century, sportswear had already begun slipping its original boundaries, moving off the field and into everyday life. Tennis played a particularly influential role in that shift because it carried something most other sports did not: a built-in aesthetic tied to leisure, class, and aspiration. What started on manicured lawns and private clubs didn’t stay there for long.
By the 1920s and 1930s, tennis style had already begun feeding directly into mainstream fashion, shaping what would later be recognised as “preppy” dress: polos, pleated skirts, cardigans, crisp whites. These were no longer costumes of exertion. They were uniforms of a lifestyle
Brands like Lacoste built entire identities around this crossover, turning tennis garments into everyday staples.
Tracksuits and sneakers soon followed. Entire wardrobes began to borrow from sport without requiring participation. By the time the term “athleisure” (athletic+leisure) emerged decades later, the behaviour was already familiar: clothing that looks athletic, carries the codes of performance, but is worn in entirely non-athletic contexts.
What mattered was no longer the activity itself, but what the aesthetic implied about the person wearing it – their time, their mobility, their proximity to health, leisure, and choice. Tennis didn’t create that shift on its own, but it gave it a visual language early on. And once that language existed, the rest of fashion learned how to speak it – and we still speak it today.
In the 1980s, we expected someone at the head of a business to wear a suit and tie. This was the uniform of success that we knew and understood. Today, a CEO showing up to a staff meeting wearing tracksuit pants and sneakers is communicating a similar message of success, probably without really even thinking about it.
That message says: I could go for a run. I’m so successful that I don’t need to be chained to my desk at all hours. I can afford the time.
About the author: Dominique Olivier
Dominique Olivier is the founder of human.writer, where she uses her love of storytelling and ideation to help brands solve problems.
Her first book, Lessons from Loss, has been published by Penguin Random House.
She is a weekly columnist in Ghost Mail and collaborates with The Finance Ghost on Ghost Mail Weekender, a Sunday publication designed to help you be more interesting.
Dominique can be reached on LinkedIn here.
