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INTERVIEW
Independent yoga wear and athleisure brands have soared through the roof in recent years thanks to the ever-growing wellness market and modern-day love for yoga worldwide. In Hong Kong, the yoga scene has expanded rapidly to cater to consumers' increasing awareness of the importance of fitness and health. Finding the perfect leggings or sports bra to assist your workouts can be a daunting task—but once you've found your magic pairing, it makes all the difference. Plus, it doesn't hurt when it's chic too.
Flow with Me is a family-owned independent platform that does the research for you and features high-quality, high-performance yoga, athleisure wear and accessories through a one-stop online shop. Each carefully chosen product at Flow with Me is enthused by sustainability and influenced by an acute awareness of values and wellbeing. We speak with the founder Ji Won Maxted Yoon on her top recommendations for yogis.
Could you tell us about Flow With Me and the platform?
I was never a very active person before having kids, but after suffering from horrible sciatica I got introduced to yoga by my best friend. She took me to a yoga class and I was hooked immediately. At the time I didn’t care much about what I was wearing and would just show up in whatever t-shirt and leggings I had in my closet. The more my passion for yoga grew, so did my wanting to feel and look better during class. This was my time to re-centre myself and to let go of all the stresses from the week. I started looking online and researching unknown yoga brands that I couldn’t find in HK and slowly upgraded my workout wardrobe. Feeling good in my outfit gave my confidence a boost too. Friends would ask where I bought my leggings or yoga mat and slowly the idea started forming that I should create a simple platform where women could shop for different styles of yoga wear.
Flow With Me is like your virtual yoga and activewear personal shopper, everything we offer has been tried and tested by me. I can see what works and what doesn’t and filter out the good and the bad. We focus on ‘how can I find activewear and athleisure wear that is versatile enough to go from classes to going out, that mixes and matches with other items in my wardrobe’.
Why is wellness so important in this day and age?
Wellness is so important because it has a direct effect on the way we act, feel and treat the people and environment around us. Living in a city like Hong Kong comes with the challenges of juggling a fast paced lifestyle, which can oftentimes cause unnecessary stress from our hectic work and family schedules. Making small adjustments and incorporating some wellness into our daily routines can have a tremendous effect on reducing the stresses in our lives. Giving priority to things that can give that positivity to our well-being like, waking up earlier to get to a yoga class, or going on that weekend hike, opting to have a healthier diet, reducing screen time and spending time outdoors are just some of the things we can do that will increase the positivity in our mental, physical and spiritual growth.
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Flow With Me is like your virtual yoga and activewear personal shopper, everything we offer has been tried and tested by the team.
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What makes Flow With Me unique?
We bring together multiple brands that each have their own unique style and story; whether it be a woman or family owned business, a focus on utilizing sustainable fabrics or implementing ethical production practices for their staff. Each brand caters to all types of women; playful, sexy, confident, classic, the focus is to find styles that fit every woman. Our collections range from bright, floral, patterned styles to more organic soft cotton pieces. We’re constantly trying to find more and more brands to work with so our collections will keep evolving so we can keep them fresh for our customers.
How do you find the brands that you work with?
We handpick each brand that is either a woman-owned business or has a big impact on paying it forward either through providing safe and ethical working conditions for their employees or using the newest technology in sustainable fabrics like Econyl or Repreve. Econyl® and Repreve® are both fabrics that are made from the use of plastics that would have been sent to landfills like used bottles, discarded fishing nets, and other waste and upcycling them into beautiful activewear
Our brands come from the US, UK, Australia, and Denmark. Each brand has a remarkable story of how they started their business.
Emily Hsu who started Emily Hsu Designs is a professional dancer who couldn’t find the right pair of leggings to fit all her needs so she began sewing her own and created high-waisted leggings that could really stay in place.
Satya Yogawear was started by Donna Rossiter who quit her job in marketing and followed her passion for yoga, by heading to India and Bali where she eventually launched her own yoga line, using organic cotton and incorporating simple classic styles—the jumpsuit and mudra wrap are among our favourites.
Indigo Luna is a small family-run operation that manufactures its apparel in a small workshop in a rice field in Bali. They focus on slow creation and plan to run out of items to reduce unnecessary waste. Plant dyes and organic cotton are used in their classy items, the buttery soft Layla flares are a must in everyone’s wardrobe.
Groceries Apparel is an L. A-basded brand that focuses on the natural hand dyeing process of pieces on GOTs organic cotton, using all-natural dyes like Iron Bark, flowers and vegetables all from their workshop in LA.
Onzie is a female-owned independent business whose founder, Kimberley Swarth, is also an avid yogi and a master in movement therapy. The clothes are designed to make you feel powerful, confident and sexy.
Moonchild Yogawear from Denmark was founded by owner Louise Nielsen, with a focus on eco-friendly yoga wear. All pieces are made from organic cotton and regenerated fibres like Q-NOVA and recycled polyester made from plastic waste. Organic cotton reduces energy and water usage and recycled material reduces the amount of plastic in our oceans.
Pharamond Life is a UK brand that creates super terra grip yoga mats. They have revolutionised the ‘asana align’ mats that help with alignment during your practice.
Alternative Apparel carries a range of soft hoodies, sweat pants and tanks that are made from recycled polyester and organic GOTs cotton, the perfect weekend outfit.
What are your top recommendations right now from Flow With Me?
It’s the hardest thing to choose just a few as everything that we offer is a favourite. If you are looking for a new mat, I would highly recommend the Pharamond Life Terra Grip mat. It has changed my practice by giving me the solid grip foundation needed to do a lot of arm balances and inversions. You can’t go wrong with any of our high waist leggings (Emily Hsu Designs, Onzie), they hold everything in place and don’t roll down during practice. For relaxed weekends I love lounging in the jumpsuit (Satya Yogawear) and the soft buttery flares (Indigo Luna) , and mixing and matching them with the tanks from Alternative Apparel.
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All images courtesy of Flow With Me.
CSP Times in paid partnership with Flow With Me.