Athleta debuted their powervita fabric last year, as an answer to lululemon’s nulu fabric. It’s designed primarily with yoga in mind, and aims for an ultra-soft, ultra-flexible feel while still being technical.
I first tried Athleta’s powervita fabric on their mesh salutation tight. I didn’t write about it on the blog when I tried them, but they were a bust for me. The fit through the lower legs was all wrong on me. Besides that, the navy fabric was see-through on me in a bend. As the months rolled on, powervita continued to receive good reviews, so I decided to give it another try. I really liked the look of these marble salutation tights, so in my cart they went!
The black rear fabric is very nice and quite flattering. Unlike the other tights I tried, these passed the bend test with no show-through at all. The fabric is similar to nulu, but a bit more substantial. I still wouldn’t describe it as compressive, but sticks to you just a little bit more than the barely-there feel of nulu. If nulu feels too revealing for you but you like the feel of the fabric, you might prefer powervita. It’s not exactly cottony, but not completely slick either. It has a spongy, super-smooth feel.
I purchased my usual Athleta size, XXS regular. Unlike the mesh salutation tights, these fit my very well. The fit is similar to align pants/crops in a size 2. The rise is high, but just a tiny bit lower than lulu’s aligns. They’re a full length tight, not 7/8, so there’s a bit of ankle bunching on me (again, note these are regular length, not petite). I love the pink block on the rear leg. It complements the white and black perfectly without making the design too busy.
There’s a huge side pocket on each thigh. The pocket goes all the way down to the seam where the colorblock starts. It’s very roomy and plenty large enough for a phone. If you’re using these tights for strength/resistance training, you might like the pocket for wandering around the gym with your phone. I wouldn’t recommend them for running since they’re not compressive and the fabric is not made for high-intensity, repetitive movements so it may not hold up well to the task.
Unfortunately, there was one major flaw with these tights. The front white panel, while beautiful, was see-through on me. You could see the distinct line of my underwear while I was standing normally. Since I would mostly use these for things like yoga or aerial class, I’d be doing a lot of stretchy moves that would make the front sheerness even more obvious. Even with skin-colored underwear, I didn’t like how it looked. For me, that was a dealbreaker, so these went back to the warehouse (and I cried a little on the inside).
Overall, the look and feel of these tights was great and I wanted to love them. It’s really such a shame about the white material, because otherwise I would have absolutely kept these. I’ll keep my eye out for more powervita styles, but I’ll have to avoid lighter colors.
Powervita tights
I have two pairs of solid color powervitas and I *love* them. They’re exactly the right amount of holding me in vs feeling comfortable (I have stomach issues). I just ordered the petite blueish/green ones with the pocket, and I’m curious to see about the fabric. When I tried the regular ones in the store, the fabric seemed thinner than on the ones I already have. I’ll be interested to see if they skimped on fabric at some point as these got popular.
Thanks for the input! I hope they’re not downgrading the fabric. :( The black fabric on these were quite nice, it was just the white fabric that wasn’t.
Athleta has been knocking it out of the park for me, lately! :) I might try these on but in a solid to avoid the sheerness issue!
Good plan! ;) I agree, there’s been a lot more good stuff from them lately.
It’s so coincidental that you just posted this review because I just bought my first pair of Athleta tights in the Powervita fabric. They were a sale item I threw in to get expedited shipping. I wasn’t sure about print (blue and pink colorblock) or functionality (as you said, they aren’t the best for running and I haven’t been doing a lot of yoga or barre lately), but I liked the fit and fabric so much I ended up moving them from the “return” pile to my drawer.
On the whole, I’ve been very pleased with Athleta lately. I also bought a pair of Sonar capris for running and TRX, and they feel a bit more compressive to me than lulu’s Speed Tights. Although I’ve never tried Old Navy’s activewear, I now have several pairs of tights from both Athleta and Gap (some several years old) and I think compression and fit are things the company, across its brands, does really well.
I have a pair of sonar capris from a couple years ago and I agree, I like the compression on them. I’ve been tempted to buy another pair quite a few times!
Have you experienced any pilling with your Aligns and if so, how bad? I am wondering if they are as bad as they reviews indicate.
Would you recommend an Athletica petite or regular for 5 ft 4? Which size would be the equivalent to Lululemon 4?
I know you didn’t ask me but I live in aligns so thought I would pipe in. They are my very favourite so I have quite a few pairs. I’m always a bit puzzled about the negative reviews about pilling because I haven’t experienced it at all. I don’t run in them because they aren’t meant for that and aren’t the proper fabric for it in my opinion. This might be why?
I’m also not super delicate with the washing of my Lulu items. They go in with all athletic gear in cold water. Dried in the dryer on the athletic no heat setting. Never an issue.
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Thanks Mary. I don’t have a thigh gap so hopefully they will be ok. I have some Go City Trek trousers (or something like that) which are great work trousers but they have a soft fabric panel down the inside of the legs that has pilled like crazy, so I was hoping Aligns wouldn’t turn out like that.
I own a few pairs of Align’s too and no issues with pilling. I’m also not delicate with my Lulu’s: i put mine in the wash with my other clothes but I do air dry them. I don’t have a thigh gap either, I’m a size 8.
A lot of reviews on the lululemon site confuse me, but the ones for Align take the cake. I wonder if people go running in them or something
Thanks shadowy_lady
I only have two pairs of aligns but they are not pilled at all. I haven’t worn them extensively–they’ve probably been through the wash about half a dozen times each. I’ve noticed that most people who complain about pilling report that it’s all over pilling, not just hot spots like inner thighs. To me, that suggests it’s a fabric issue rather than “user error” like running in them. My best guess is that there are batches of fabric that are processed slightly differently, which would offer an explanation for why it’d be an all-or-nothing effect.
Thanks AA
the key with power vita is to get the solid colors. some of the other ones, like the marble one you review here, the white patterned portion is NOT powervita material. Only the black part is. Love power vita more than the aligns (mine have never piled either, just to note) because while being light weight and smoothing, they def hug in more than aligns and offer more compression.
Thanks for the suggestion! Next time I’ll definitely avoid the printed fabrics. I definitely like that powervita is more supportive than aligns so I’d like to give them another chance.