THE JOURNAL

Searching for the most stylish sportswear for a studiously relaxed look? Don't sweat it – this new, exclusive Reigning Champ capsule collection has you covered.
For all we at MR PORTER endlessly opine about which chinos to pair with what jacket, or whether to wear brown or black shoes with a navy suit, sometimes we also secretly wonder whether it wouldn’t be nice to live in the kind of non-judgmental world where you could just wear cosy sweats all the time. Fuelling such controversial urges since 2007, Vancouver-based brand Reigning Champ has spent a good part of the last decade raising the style status of loopback cotton, via its range of simple but wonderfully well-crafted sweatpants, tees and hoodies, all of which are manufactured in the brand’s dedicated facility in Canada. With its latest capsule collection, available exclusively on MR PORTER, the brand is taking such thinking a step further, merging classic loopback cotton with performance- and outdoor-inspired technical fabrics and details to result in a range of pieces that can and should be worn on the street as well as the sofa. Below, we pick three of our favourite pieces from the capsule and explain how to work them into perfectly put together (and stylishly sporty) outdoor ensembles.
THE LOOPBACK BOMBER
This monochrome bomber jacket espouses a classic varsity style, but instead of wool and leather, it uses loopback cotton and a technical shell for the sleeves. This makes it a lightweight, more summer-appropriate variation on the look, as handy for slinging on after the gym as it is for – aha – bombing around town. For the latter eventuality, you want to de-sport it just a little bit. Do so by pairing it with these linen and cotton trousers from Club Monaco, which sit somewhere between jeans and chino territory.
THE DRAWSTRING T-SHIRT
A plain T-shirt is a perennial essential, but it doesn’t always scream “cutting edge”. You couldn’t level the same criticism at the above example from the Reigning Champ collection, however, thanks to its nylon drawstring hem, which allows you to adjust it to your liking around the hips. It’s a T-shirt of the future. Smarten it up, but keep the technical feel with a shell blazer from South Korean brand Wooyoungmi.
THE PANELLED SWEATPANTS
Both stupendously cosy and functional, these grey sweatpants improve upon your typical Sunday-morning gym-going fare with a pair of zip-panelled pockets to keep your padlock/keys and change from spilling out all over the floor. They’re also tapered and articulated slightly at the knee, meaning that they have a flattering slim shape. Though we wouldn’t suggest wearing them out to a posh French restaurant, they’ll be perfectly acceptable for a trip to the shops or a pub lunch – just throw a J.Crew cardigan over the top and you’re done.