.jpg?ssl=1 "The New Outdoor Voices: Is It As Good As It Was in 2016?")
The year was 2015. Obama was president, green juice was nigh, and Outdoor Voices and Man Repeller—with Tyler Haney and Leandra Medine Cohen still at the helm of both brands, respectively—collaborated on a “kit”: a head-to-toe athleisure look that was meant to be worn both inside the gym and out.
It was the first of many viral moments I can recall in the early Outdoor Voices days. Over the next few years, the brand became a movement. Haney was a young, 20-something founder who deeply understood her millennial clientele. She introduced a wave of yuppies to the notion of athleisure—that fitness apparel could be attractive, and stylish, and fun, and not just utilitarian and “sporty”—and, therefore, the notion that anyone who is merely #DoingThings can be an athlete. For me, this ethos democratized movement. I remember feeling encouraged to walk, to move, to do even a 10- or 15-minute workout because suddenly workouts were pitched to me like rainbows: colorful, ethereal, and even transportive. Just by being mildly active in a pair of colorblocked leggings I could be part of a club where I had never felt I belonged. And honestly, that was huge.
But things came to a head for Haney and her brand once the pandemic arrived. She was pushed out in 2020, and soon after the once-beloved “OV” seemingly fell off the face of the planet. Brands like Alo and Lululemon and Vuori caught on to what millennials (and later, Gen Z) wanted from athleisure; others, like Gap, started making similar looks for significantly less. Friends of mine would complain that OV lost its touch: The quality and fit had declined, and even the customer service and branding felt off. By 2024, all of OV’s brick and mortar locations were shuttered, with the brand reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy. Months later, Consortium Brand Partners acquired the brand, and by that summer convinced Haney to come back on to lead the relaunch. She agreed, and brought her original OV design lead, Hannah Wilkinson, along with her.
Our office was abuzz in July when the news of all this started to trickle out (with an Instagram stunt, no less—OV unfollowed everyone but Haney and wiped its grid clean). We kept our eyes on the first number of drops over the latter half of this year, knowing that ultimately, we would need to try OV 2.0 for ourselves. Was it as good as the OG? Better? Would we be sorely disappointed? So this fall we called in a handful of pieces from the Hike Collection, which launched in October. Here, read three SELF editors’ honest reviews on how the styles stack up.
When I first saw this on the new OV site, I knew it felt familiar and nostalgic…and then I realized what it recalled: a somewhat obscure 1998 Britney Spears photoshoot for a German teen mag in which she is wearing a similar periwinkle-cornflower baby tee. I was sold. The waffle material is nice and thick, which, for me, compensated for the overall baby-ness of the tee (I am not a crop top-wearer): The top still provided ample coverage—my midriff wasn’t hanging out, nor were the outline of my nipples. I wore a size medium, with the hunch that the top would run on the small side, and I was right. Best styled with a pair of capri-length cargo pants, it’s a baby tee with a little bit of everything, in what I believe is the perfect shade of blue. —Hannah Pasternak, Lifestyle Director
