Fitness apparel and workout clothes are about three things: comfort, appearance and advertising a marketable lifestyle – the you, you want to be. It’s nearly impossible to accomplish the things you want from life if you are around people who are not supportive of your goals or are diligent in the pursuit
Pretty much every sportswear company now offers comfortable products such as a basic 60/40 combed ring spun cotton (what’s the difference?) polyester suede shirt. We don’t have to tolerate 100% cotton shirts that chafe your nipples or under your arms if they don’t fit right, which they rarely do, and shrink, or don’t shrink, like you thought they would. It sounds odd that a shirt made from bamboo would be more comfortable than cotton, but some are.
Anyway, that leaves us with appearance and lifestyle. People buy stuff that they think looks cool, duh, moving on.
Selling a lifestyle is a weird dynamic because a business is convincing a customer that the product is needed or that the purchase comes with a subscription to a lifestyle which it does, but only in appearance. We live at a time in human history in which people have more control over who they are than ever before. That doesn’t really make it any easier though. As that article states, “Expressing who we are and are becoming in words can be a challenge; appearance style seems to offer a way of articulating a statement that is difficult to put into words.”
Chances are if you are reading this, you are all about the Caffeine and Kilos lifestyle, because you have seen how it has been visually represented. The types of people who wear these workout clothes and live these types of lives are the types of people you want to be around, be yourself, or already are. If you have stumbled upon this website, you might wonder if Caffeine and Kilos is about coffee and drugs, which you soon discovered, it’s not.
Kate Harrison wrote Seven Reasons Why People Really Buy in which she interviewed author Shari Levitin for Forbes. As a consumer myself, I get it. I get what a business is trying to tell me and sell me, and if it fits, I let them. I know that buying a shirt means I bought a shirt, but it is also an expression of a desire to belong to a tribe of people.
In another Forbes article, Brent Gleeson explains Why Accountability is Critical For Achieving Winning Results. Sure, Forbes is mainly geared to the business world, but the application is essentially the same in other important aspects of our lives. Very few people can self-motivate, be accountable, breed their own excellence and empower themselves. The people you surround yourself with are huge drivers of those elements and enhance your individual ability to do each. In the gym it sounds like: The people with whom you work out with, can have a profound impact on your results.
So, it makes sense that we would find a business that represents who we are working to be. I like working out, I like coffee, boom – Caffeine and Kilos.
Nike, Under Armor, Reebok and Adidas are the titans in the fitness apparel world, there is no doubt, but when you’re all about everything, some people can feel like another sucker in a swoosh. There’s nothing wrong with being part of a homogenous population of mega-brand wearers, because mega-brands have access to mega-bucks and create mega-comfortable fabrics for working out. But for the true sense of specific culture, that feeling of not being washed in a wave of overwhelming commerce, to find that specific brand that is unique to your specific life, is good.
It’s supporting a lifestyle and a movement, not just a logo.
Simply, thank you for your continued support.
More Articles...
|
|
|
|
