7 Amazing Canadian Yoga Wear Brands (That Aren’t Lululemon)
Updated: Mar. 17, 2021Look great on and off the mat with these Canadian yoga wear brands.
The hottest yoga wear in Canada
Wear something from Lululemon and you get hooked. But while the Vancouver success story still corners the market, there’s a second wave of Canadian-designed athletic fashion brands finding their own niches to keep us looking and feeling good both on and off the mat. Some have retail stores, while others sell their creations online only. Here are some of the trendiest Canadian yoga wear brands.
(Related: 6 Things to Look for When Shopping for Yoga Pants)
Daub + Design
If you’ve grown tired of your basic black yoga leggings and tanks, you’re going to greatly appreciate Daub + Design. The Vancouver-based women’s activewear line was founded in 2010 by Lexi Soukoreff, whose background is in textile design — so it’s no wonder why it’s rife with dreamy prints and interesting designs. The pieces are cut from sustainable fabrics that are hand-dyed or printed with designs by Soukoreff, so no two pieces are alike.
“Our fabrics are all super soft and designed for comfort — both for active days and your every day,” says Soukoreff. “Everything can be paired with pieces in our sustainable basics line.”
Our favourite items? Their leggings: Try Daub + Design’s tie-dye bottoms or tone-on-tone animal prints. If you’re looking for a more subtle pick, try one of their shiny black options. Across the line, sizes range from extra small to extra large, and a variety of styles are available.
(Related: Yoga for Weight Loss: 6 Moves to Get in Shape Fast)
Azur
Been living in your yoga wear lately? We all have. And that’s exactly what was Azur founder Erin Ward-Williams’ vision: to create comfortable, versatile clothing that all women can (and will want to) wear all day long.
“As a fitness professional, when I took a look in my closet, I noticed some gaps in the market when it came to athletic wear and wanted to create pieces for females with curves that would compliment the natural female form,” says Ward-Williams. “I was surprised to notice that most brands didn’t offer sizes over XL, and was eager to bring a more diverse size range to the table.”
Known for their high-waisted bottoms, trendy bike shorts and flattering crop tops, Azur offers sizing from 0 to 18, in a range of pretty colours like lavender, Bordeaux, and eggplant. Prefer to do yoga in looser-fitting attire? The brand also oversized sweatshirts and sweatpants at sizes XS to 3XL.
Lolë
The name, which stands for “Live Out Loud Everyday,” was hatched by Evelyn Trempe and huband Éric D’Anjou, who had launched the ski apparel brand Orage in 1989. In 2000, they noticed an opportunity in the outdoor market. “The clothing at that time was very masculine,” says Trempe. “It was all about performance and not look.” She knew they could make more fashion forward high-tech clothes for women. Two years later, Lolë was launched. The company used its contacts at Sporting Life in Canada and REI in the U.S. to get the line onto store shelves.
Today, Lolë puts out around 350 styles a year, including yoga basics but also outerwear and dresses. In 2010, Trempe and her team launched the first Atelier Lolë store in Montreal. Now there are over 50—most of them in Canada, with several in France and the U.S. They also sell at many other retailers and online.
Trempe continues to push for what she considers Lolë’s key principles: technical sophistication, femininity, versatility, and comfort. As an avid skier, cyclist and runner, she ensures the company is creating fashions for women like herself. “We really want women to feel good inside and out.”
(Related: 6 Canadian Sports Bras for Bigger Busts)
Titika
When Toronto-based personal trainer Susan Bosley wanted a thin-strapped workout top with a built-in bra, she suggested it to her favourite brand, Titika Active Couture. As one of the company’s so-called “advocates,” she offers feedback and promotes the line. A few months later, the Susan Tank was for sale in Titika’s retail and online stores.
Fast, flexible and fun: That’s what this Toronto-based brand is about. Titika’s owner, Eileen Zhang, first started working with Courtney Brooke, while both were studying fashion business at George Brown College. Upon graduating in 2009, Zhang decided to do an athletic-wear line, and Brooke soon came on board to handle marketing and branding. The name came from Zhang’s son, William, who, one day, was dancing and singing “Ti-ti-ka! Ti-ti-ka!” She hoped the brand would have that much zest and energy.
Zhang had products ready and in a few studios that same year. A location soon became available in Toronto’s Beach neighbourhood, and she decided to open her own storefront. Zhang reached out to contacts in her native Hong Kong to set up a small factory there, which allows her to retain control over the manufacturing process. The company releases new items every few weeks. A capri pant may appear one week with additional lace or a ruffle on the bottom; a hoodie may get a different treatment from month to month with different fabrics.
Along with a brisk online business, the company operates three stores in Ontario.
(Related: 6 Of The Most Soothing Yoga Poses To Help You Sleep Better)
Sportive Plus
Leave it to two teachers to understand the need for inclusion. Former phys-ed teachers André Claude and Ginette Leduc founded Sportive Plus to fill the diversity gap in the market and create activewear that’s reasonably priced and offers plus sizes exclusively.
Claude and Leduc knew there was a demand for plus-size activewear, and, more specifically, clothing for all women to wear for everything from low-impact at-home workouts to serious sports and challenges — something the founders know a thing or two about. Claude was once one of the top javelin throwers in the world and made it to the Olympic Games in Munich, while Leduc took on the Everest Gokyo trek, twice.
Sportive Plus offers a range of pieces including, of course, yoga pants, and also outerwear like fleece jackets, that make it easier to stay active in the cold weather. The Quebec-based company has a national e-comm site, offering free shipping over $150 and free returns.
(Related: How to Choose The Right Type of Yoga For You)
Michi
If you were in New York City in the spring of 2010 and were working out all the time, you might have run into the most fashionable Canadian fitness buff in town, Michelle Watson. The designer had just left a job creating sportswear for Ralph Lauren—she’d already designed for Donna Karan and Kate Spade since arriving in NYC in 2004 to study fashion—and was now testing out her own line, Michi. “I wanted to make stuff that was more creative. It’s hard to do that with a big company,” says Watson.
After testing her custom-designed pieces during dance, yoga and martial arts classes, she came out with a small line that focused on undergarments. No one, she felt, was making a bra that was comfortable and looked great, yet still offered good support and shape.
Watson and her sexy products got media attention right away, even before the collection hit stores in Canada. “I was lucky. I didn’t have time to do any public relations, but bloggers and the media found me through my website,” she says.
That summer, Watson decided to move back to Toronto, where she now manufactures her line of clothing. She rents office space in one of the factories where her clothing is made, partly so that she can help the sewers handle the intricate use of lace and mesh on the pieces.
These days, the line includes superhero and lingerie-inspired leggings, jackets, bras, and tops. To Watson, it’s the combination of design, detail and fabric that makes the pieces work outside of the gym, too. She says: “When you wear Michi on an airplane to be comfortable, it looks like you dressed up for your flight.”
(Related: 15 Best Yoga Mats on Amazon)
TerraFrog
“You have extra large, honey; no one has extra large!” cried actress Yvette Nicole Brown when she first spied TerraFrog Clothing Corp’s Pop Bottle Hoodie. The curvy American actress, from TV’s Community, along with a number of other Hollywood types discovered the Alberta-based label when entrepreneurial sisters Cori and Bobbi Windsor attended an Emmy party last fall. Their success there further entrenched the five-year-old company’s unique appeal: great-fitting athletic clothes in all sizes.
The brand came about in 2007 when they spent a leave together—Cori was doing her master’s degree in nursing and Bobbi was on a maternity leave with her second child and doing her master’s in education. That’s when they realized they could not find good-quality, Canadian-made workout gear that covered their long arms and torsos (Cori is five-foot-nine and Bobbi is six-feet). Although they had no fashion experience, they started making drawings, sourcing fabrics—particularly eco-friendly ones like bamboo—and working with an experienced pattern maker to realize their ideas. A year later, they had their first line, made at factories in Alberta and Ontario, and started selling online. “We wanted to take it slow, get our feet wet,” says Cori. Soon retailers started contacting them, and TerraFrog is now sold in many stores across Canada.
The early designs were quite funky, but the sisters now stick to their top-selling basics: sturdy workout jackets, mid-rise bottoms and carefully fitted tanks.
Next: Sweaty Betty, the UK’s Popular Yoga-Wear Line, Is Now Available in Canada
