In a market saturated by yoga pants, BIA Woman Athletics is standing tall and strong.
Frustrated with the fit of athletic pants they had tried, BIA founders Emma Hamilton and Mysha Dewar-McClelland set out to break the mold with their own design.Â
Born and raised in North Vancouver, Hamilton accidentally began practising martial arts as a teenager and later got into power lifting.
“My boyfriend broke up with me and I thought: I need to do something for myself,” she recalls.
Hamilton found a taekwondo studio in North Van and kicked the heartache out of her system. She became hooked on the sport because of the discipline factor and the long journey to becoming a martial arts expert.
“Not just everybody could do it, it was something that required dedication and commitment,” explains Hamilton.
She eventually opened a martial arts studio in Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»in 2009 that offered kickboxing, boxing and jujutsu classes – with a strong focus on self-defence lessons for women and teenage girls.
“The techniques that we show are not based on size or strength, they are based on manoeuvring and timing and escaping and fighting – if you have to – for your life,” says Hamilton of the self-defence classes which are taught by women.
The students are surprised that it’s not about strength, explains Hamilton, and feel empowered by being able to execute the techniques and “achieve the escape.”Â
In kickboxing and martial arts, wearing the right apparel is key. Previously, Hamilton found herself tugging at her clothes, which needed constant adjustment and were a distraction from what she was trying to achieve.
“When you’re in combat, you actually need to be focused,” she says.
On Hamilton’s athletic body, pants would fall down and/or ride up into her crotch area while she was manoeuvring in the ring.
“So it was constantly pulling them up at the waist or pulling them up at the thigh to try and get them back in place – and that’s not easy to do with gloves on your hands,” she says.
One size doesn’t fit all body types, that’s what the BIA brand is trying to communicate through the new clothing line.
“Every woman is built differently, so we wanted to try and appeal to the women whose body shape is a little more built up and muscular,” explains Hamilton. “Women who train hard in explosive power sports such as weightlifting, wrestling, climbing, spinning, martial arts, rugby, football, soccer etc., have bodies that often bulk up with muscle.”
In surveying their network of athletes, the BIA team learned chafing and transparency in the butt area are common complaints with the average athletic pant. So they stripped it down, took it apart seam by seam and reconstructed it.
Hamilton had a connection in the technical apparel industry who helped work out the design kinks and also brought in a pattern maker. The group sat down and went through many iterations and retooling before they found the right fit.
The waistband needed to be higher and tapered – to accommodate a fit waist and built-up thighs, while more fabric was added to the glute area to keep the pants from falling down.
They moved the inside seam forward – so if thighs rub together it’s not rubbing on the actual seam – and removed the front centre seam. A mesh panel was added behind the knee for some ventilation.
Extra Lycra, achieved through a custom material, was the icing on the cake.
“We wanted our customers to really feel like they are held in by the fabric,” says Hamilton.
Manufactured in Vancouver, the pants ($90) are the main star of the BIA lineup, but there are also tanks, T-shirts, hoodies and flowy cover-ups in the mix.
BIA apparel is available online at biawomanathletics.com – with the company also relying on social media to get the word out. At the same time Hamilton hopes the clothes promote body positive messaging amongst women.
“Totally,” she says. “They are not trying to fit their body into a pair of pants. It’s more like we’re making this with the recognition that women’s thighs do rub together.”
