There’s a famous photo of Dolly Parton on an exercise bike. Her beauty queen curls are tucked under a sweatband, blue eyeshadow generously applied, famous figure clad in a hot pink leotard. She may or may not actually be working out, but she definitely looks the part.
For the team at Outdoor Voices, that photo launched a thousand Craigslist searches. The performance apparel brand was designing the interior of a soon-to-be-open Nashville retail location and knew the bike was the embodiment of what they wanted the space to represent. Vintage, but not cliché. Nostalgic, but new. An ode to the larger-than-life legends of Music City, but colored by the brand’s fun and inclusive approach to fitness.
In a retail landscape of sleek merchandising and standardized spaces, Outdoor Voices’ brick-and-mortar stores reflect the same “come as you are” mentality that set the company apart from competitors and led to its meteoric growth in the first place.
Founder and CEO Ty Haney has created the rare performance brand that isn’t concerned with its customers’ actual performance. Instead, Outdoor Voices champions a broader umbrella of recreational activities like dog walking, jogging, swimming and yoga. Outdoor Voices’ Instagram mimics our own: gym mirror selfies, sherbet-colored memes, dog photos, personal victories. It’s a friendlier approach to fitness that eschews the “go hard or go home” mentality in favor of #DoingThings. This ethos is built into each of the brand’s nine retail locations.
“We like to go by what we call a ‘recreational index’ — how active people are in each city — when choosing new retail locations,” Haney says. “Our community drives the conversation, and we show up for them.”
Starting with their first location in 2014 in Austin, Texas, the brand’s HQ and homebase, Outdoor Voices has branched out to markets in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Dallas and Nashville. Next up is a Flatiron District location in New York City.
“After deciding on the location, our insanely talented retail design team, led by Will Fox, starts ideating on concepts for the space,” Haney explains. “Each shop is different and becomes a fun destination for our community to visit and see how personalized each of our nine shops are to the cities they’re in.”
The Boston shop winks at the city’s marathon culture via a race-bibbed mannequin. San Francisco hosts a water feature and zen sand garden. The interior architecture of the Washington, D.C., store mimics the city’s monuments. And, of course, in Nashville you’ve got the vintage exercise bike, a gold-plated boombox and a pink refrigerator stocked with Topo Chico, meant to honor Elvis’ favorite snack. (On opening day, the fridge was filled with peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches.)
Outdoor Voices’ welcoming vibe means each shop functions more like a clubhouse where you can hang out with friends, sign up for a “Dog Jog” and try on leggings and crop tops, even if you buy them from your phone later that night. It’s an example of a slew of new retail spaces aiming to bridge the gap between URL and IRL, inviting customers out from behind their screens and back through the door.
It’s not all talk, either. Outdoor Voices wants to make sure its customers are #DoingThings. The brand hosts free events such as group hikes in Los Angeles, live music in Nashville, kayaking on the Charles River in Boston and “Endorphins Make You Happy Hour” in all nine markets. In Austin, Haney and company are bringing back the popular Summer Sunset Series, which regularly sees more than 400 people.
“Our shops are community hubs for activity,” Haney says. “That IRL connection is super important to us. It’s more than a fitting room. Customers don’t just want a place to shop, they want to be a part of something bigger.”
XX Johnie Gall. Photos courtesy of Outdoor Voices.
Find an event or retail location near you at events.outdoorvoices.com. This story originally appeared in RANGE Magazine Issue 11: Origins. Order your copy HERE.