La Belle Vie: Gym gear

I've made my thoughts about ex­ces­sive dis­plays of Dart­mouth kit clear in the past. It's not nec­es­sary. Every­body knows you go to Dart­mouth, oth­er­wise you wouldn't be read­ing your mag­a­zine on an ex­er­cise bike in Alumni Gym. I do, how­ever, have im­mense re­spect for the pro­fes­sor who res­olutely wears his Yale t-shirt every time he works out. Kudos.

I have a tried and tested the­ory about gym gear. For those of you, like me, who are full of good in­ten­tions but just never seem to find the time/en­ergy/in­cli­na­tion to work out, an extra in­cen­tive is re­quired to urge you to set your alarm half an hour early and hit the tread­mill. My so­lu­tion is to spend ex­tor­tion­ate amounts of money on swanky gym gear. The plan works on two lev­els: firstly, when you're su­per-ex­cited about new clothes you find any ex­cuse to wear them (hence fre­quent trips to the gym), and sec­ondly, you feel so guilty about the amount you've spent that you have to uti­lize your new pur­chases to make your­self feel bet­ter about it. I'm telling you, it's fool­proof.

As a con­se­quence of the afore­men­tioned plan, the ma­jor­ity of my gym kit is adi­das by Stella Mc­Cart­ney. Luck­ily her new spring col­lec­tion does not dis­ap­point. In the last week or so I've been well and truly bit­ten by the spring­time bug, and I can't get enough of the vi­brant col­ors and clever de­tail­ing that are around at the mo­ment.

If you're a lit­tle bit self-con­scious when you're work­ing out, this loose-fit­ting t-shirt isfan­tas­ticand, paired with some slim-fit­ting bot­toms, is sure to get you no­ticed for all the right rea­sons.

I'm also lov­ing thistankwhich has a great cut-out de­tail at the back.

I've had sev­eral pairs of Stella run­ning tights, and they've all been great. This pair is sure not todis­ap­point. You could play it safe and get them in grey, but the yel­low are just so much bet­ter.

Nike has some great op­tions at the mo­ment too (just STAY AWAY from the shorts). Theseun­usual caprishave a real urban vibe (I love the Bright Mango) and make a re­fresh­ing change from reg­u­lar black tights.

One of the best man­u­fac­tur­ers and stock­ists of women's gym gear has got to beSweaty Betty— they seem to know ex­actly what it is that women want out of work­out cloth­ing. I'm in love with the gor­geous City Brights col­lec­tions they have at the mo­ment — the com­bi­na­tion of the cool azureZero Grav­ity tightsand the fiery coralVic­tor Teeis stun­ning, and will cer­tainly have you bound­ing out of bed in the morn­ing.

If you're a lit­tle bit shy about color, try lay­er­ing it up. The gym is one sit­u­a­tion in which I fully ad­vo­cate bra-ex­po­sure — the adi­das TECH­FIT bra comes in a wide range ofvi­brant col­orsand would look great under a slouchy black or white tank, such as this one fromSweaty Betty.

Al­ter­na­tively, you could go down the ac­ces­sories route. TheUr­banears Plat­tan head­phonesare fab­u­lously vi­brant with a retro feel. Un­for­tu­nately the teal and rasp­berry are al­ready sold out, but the grape and tomato are equally great op­tions.

There's also hours of fun to be had de­sign­ing your owntrain­ers on nike.​com— as far as I'm con­cerned, the more eight­ies the color-com­bi­na­tion, the bet­ter.

The most im­por­tant thing is that your gym gear should re­ally make you want to work out. Be loud and proud, and just have fun with it — after all, isn't that what ex­er­cise is all about?