Before Ty Haney created Outdoor Voices in 2013, a dress was something you wore to dinner. Unless it was short and stretchy, which meant you wore it to tennis. Workout clothes were mostly black, white, or gray, not sorbet sweet, nor were they totems of an aspirational life or style or, God forbid, lifestyle. They didn’t go to brunch.
With Outdoor Voices, Haney relaxed everything but the compression in her spandex pieces, gathering exercise clothes under a more easygoing name—recreation—and inviting everyone to join her in “doing things,” the company’s slogan. Where Nike was hard driving with gritted teeth and admonition (Just Do It, dammit), Outdoor Voices was smiling and chatting with friends as it walked the dog.
That sunny proposition was a triumph—as a brand, as a business, and as a gentle rallying cry—until the clouds rolled in, as they often do. Investors in Outdoor Voices, who controlled the board, brought in an older, more experienced CEO and, in 2020, Haney was banished from the company she created. “I lost my voice,” she says. Stores closed last year as rumors of bankruptcy swirled, and the leggings and skorts appeared on the distinctly uncool and aspiration-free shelves of Nordstrom Rack.
Now, Haney is back as founder, partner, and co-owner. She hinted at her return in late July when the brand wiped its Instagram grid and followed only one person (yes, Haney).
The first words out of her mouth when we talked last week were, “I’m having fun.” For a brand that started as fun and became un-fun, it was a noticeable switch.
Haney and her partners are determined to correct some of the past missteps, installing a COO right off the bat and instilling more fiscal discipline into the whole operation.
She’s bringing back a number of the beloved OV styles and adding a little fashion to zhuzh things up a notch. She credits much of this to her new head of design, Jessica Guzman, formerly of the artsy label Eckhaus Latta.
The exercise landscape shifted in the years since Outdoor Voice’s beginnings, from the loud and sweaty SoulCycle, Barry’s Bootcamp, and CrossFit to the quiet precision of Pilates today. But the clothes haven’t evolved significantly. “One thing I’m excited to explode out of is these…I don’t know if I should say this on the record,” Haney hesitates. And then she does, as if it’s sacrilege: “Spandex tops and bottoms. I’m so excited for the style to get more interesting.”
Her favorite new piece is an updated exercise dress, called the Energy Dress, an A-line number. She’s partial to the black one with white topstitching and an embroidered OV logo that, she believes, reflects her own life since she left the brand and became a mother. “I’m five years older. I’m more experienced.” Haney, 36, has two children with her husband, Mark Wystratch, of the band Midland. She’s also a friend of Elon’s and has posted a video on Instagram from the backseat of a Cybertruck with the man himself at the wheel.
She seems unafraid of a little controversy, including in her brand offerings. “I’ve never actually liked leggings until now, and I had a big leggings business,” she says. “I wear very baggy jeans, and I’ve noticed all the high schoolers do, too. I don’t think leggings will completely go away, but I do think just … there’s definitely a bigger pant trend.”
She’s adding items that create an actual look (lewk?), including a cotton poplin buttoned shirt to “throw over your Pilates outfit,” and a cropped cardigan in a blend of cotton and cashmere with an OV logo above the left breast. She revived a print from the early days as an “if you know you know” wink to the original fans. There’s also a bandeau top that looks somewhat perilous—unlikely to stay put during a cat cow, not to mention a couple of jumping jacks. It’s all a work in progress.
Haney has had time to reassess her rocky adventures at the brand. The start-up world and its investors have not been especially kind to the pack of charismatic female founders once called “girl bosses.” But then again, according to various reports, those girl bosses were allegedly not especially kind to their employees. Haney has claimed that the executives and board turned against her, and because she signed documents, she was unable to defend herself against those accusations.
“What happened to us?” Haney wonders. “We were championing women, but that was a rough time.”
For now, Haney is energized about the future. “I hope there’s a wave of more female founders who can model behavior. And just to say it out loud, I’m very optimistic and well-intentioned.”
When she left Outdoor Voices, Haney also took a break from traditional workouts and all that spandex. Instead, she rides horses every day as a show jumper. “You go as fast as you can without knocking down any of the poles,” she explains. Sounds like a metaphor to me.
“I’m excited to get back on the horse and hopefully be an inspiration for a lot of women. And more than women.”
Linda Wells is the Editor at Air Mail Look
