Blood, Sweat and Indigo
Indigo & Goods and Ricki Hall offer up a leaner, meaner approach to fitness and lifestyle
Somewhere along the line, we lost our way.
It’s hard to say where, exactly. Sometime around the overnight craze of Bootea and carb cycling, perhaps. Or maybe the moment we turned our back on gluten and suddenly became scared shitless of bread. Or it might have been around the time Herbalife somehow became a valid substitute for hard work, a responsible diet and good, old fashioned accountability. Whatever the reason, somewhere down the line we bought into the bullshit notion that fitness was easy.
Indigo & Goods’ latest collaboration with model, fitness enthusiast and fledgling barber, Ricki Hall is a clear attempt to set things straight in this regard. With a range of hard-wearing, classically-inspired gym and lifestyle staples, the RH Gym collection promotes a simpler, grittier approach to fitness, style and life in general. No shortcuts, no compromises, no excuses.
With a taste for timeless clothing and a complete disregard for trends or rules, Indigo & Goods founder, David Rix, outlines the ethos of a brand that honours the tried-and-tested over the quick-and-easy: ‘Authenticity and quality stand for honesty to us. That’s why we make here in England. Factories are small, often family run, sometimes a bit slow, but usually always high quality.’
It’s a refreshingly genuine, old-school approach to gym wear. The pieces themselves – made up of organic, combed cotton sweatshirts, terry cloth joggers and garment-dyed tee shirts – evoke a less scientific, less faddish and more no-nonsense approach to the idea of fitness. ‘The fabrics we use have been knitted in a traditional way, using certified organic cotton where possible, here in the UK,’ says David. ‘They are the old school fabrics so often lost and replaced by those ugly spandex things. We don’t use those shitty synthetic fabrics.’
The result is a range of well-made, long-lasting and dependable goods that can be worn wherever the hell you like, according to Ricki: ‘RH GYM creates staple pieces, that are good quality, and will last and improve with age. Not disposable. This stuff is more than just for the gym: I’m able to mix these items in with my non-gym clothing and wear them everyday.’
Conjuring up images of Raging Bull’s ring-ready Robert De Niro and a Rocky-era Sylvester Stallone in equal measure, the collection represents a fitness lifestyle miles apart from the calorie counting crowds currently hiding behind quinoa salads, kale smoothies and fasted cardio. In Ricki’s own words, the idea behind the collaboration with Indigo & Goods is to celebrate the ancient art of simplicity: ‘picking heavy shit up and putting it down. Throwing a lot of iron around. No silly machines. No silliness. Just good, honest old-school bodybuilding.’
Sure, a heavyweight tee shirt and well-made pair of joggers will have no direct effect whatsoever on your physical ability, endurance or general mental conditioning. But that’s not really the point. More than anything, the RH Gym line taps into an ideal, an attitude, a state of mind. It becomes the driving force behind your 6am run, the second wind that gets you through the home stretch, the reason to pick up the skipping rope after all these years (Rocky soundtrack optional). It’s an antidote to the lazy, the dishonest and the demotivated. It’ll add nothing to your bench, and it certainly won’t make getting fit any easier.
But you know what? Neither will Herbalife. EJ
Words by Will Halbert
Image Credits by Alexander Bather
