Function Meets High Fashion in Roksanda Ilincic’s New Collaboration With Lululemon

Just four days ago, Roksanda Ilincic spoke at Vogue’s Forces of Fashion conference wearing a dress from her Spring 2020 collection: crisp, gently-pleated cotton in a fresh shade of hibiscus with voluminous sleeves. With its loose silhouette and bold hue, it was effortlessly statement-making, which sums up her 14-year-old label’s aesthetic pretty succinctly. Colorful dresses are her specialty—the kind you can wear with slouchy boots (as she did at the conference) or stilettos for a night out. That makes her latest collaboration all the more surprising: a 16-piece collection for Lululemon.  
 What do a London dressmaker and a Canadian legging pioneer have in common? Quite a lot, evidently. “The ethos behind both brands is to empower women, to make them feel comfortable with themselves, comfortable with their bodies, and comfortable with the clothes they’re wearing,” Ilincic tells Vogue. Launching October 22nd, the capsule brings her eye for color and volume to Lululemon’s core pieces and technical fabrics. The company’s Define zip-up jacket, for instance, was reworked with full, Roksanda-ish sleeves and color-blocked with raspberry and orchid. A hooded cape comes in the same shades with hits of ochre, while another zip-up mixes navy, emerald, and mint. “What’s interesting is that I tend to wear all black to the gym,” Ilincic explains. “For every other occasion, whether it’s going to work, going to an event, or dropping my daughter off at school, I’m always in color. But when I exercise, I wear black. My swimsuit is black. So it was really refreshing to extend the theory and philosophy of my brand to athletic wear, and to push my own boundaries.”  
 Ilincic’s customers might have similarly plain workout gear, perhaps because it’s so rare to find colors as artful as hers in the athletic market; typically, they’re all neons and cutesy patterns. In contrast, her Lululemon pieces feel elegant and elevated in such shades as sienna, deep sapphire, lilac, and mustard; in fact, you can even picture the athleisure-averse wearing them outside of the gym.  
 In addition to the capsule’s more familiar leggings and sports bras, there are items that cater specifically to those in-between, on-the-go moments, like a midiskirt, wide-leg trousers, and a drawstring dress, all in a technical satin. “Those are really pieces for transitioning from one phase of your day to another, when you’re on your way to the gym or you’re just commuting,” Ilincic says. (Layer the dress over your leggings on your way to yoga, for instance, then throw it back on for the rest of the workday.) “We’re witnessing how the boundaries of fashion have blurred, and people are wearing their sports gear everywhere. It’s a wonderful direction fashion is headed. I’ve been wearing one of the long-sleeved tops with my normal clothes, and I find it looks really refreshing. It’s fun to mix those unexpected colors and fabrics.”  
 Audrey Reilly, Lululemon’s head of design, calls it “sweat to street”—and both women agree that it’s where the luxury market is going. “At Lululemon, we’re obsessed with the woman who is always moving, who’s an urban nomad, and blends function with high fashion,” Reilly says. “Roksanda really understands proportions and shapes and how to dress a woman’s body, and we think about functionality and performance. So we challenged each other and managed to express both of those things in every piece.” Their hero style, the Inner Expanse Infinity Coat, is a prime example: In navy and black or shades of violet, it can be layered up into a giant puffer or broken down to a vest, a trench, or a raincoat, among other combinations.   
 “It’s important for me to feel the pulse of time and the pulse of a woman—what she wants, how she’s living,” Ilincic adds. “The speed of our lives has demanded a certain shift in how we dress. Sneakers came into the story a few years ago, and T-shirts became acceptable everywhere, along with leggings and sport jackets. As a designer, you have to be attuned to that, and with this collaboration, I can push the concept even further.”  
 With prices ranging from $78 to $998, the collection will be available from October 22nd on lululemon.com and in select Lululemon and Roksanda stores.