“I’m a gym rat. I want to work in this type of store because I live in activewear,” says Alex Reymann, manager of Lole in Arbor Hills Shopping Center. Women’s wardrobes in recent years have been redefined by this clothing category. “‘Athleisure’ is another name for it.” She laughs a little at the industry jargon, yet it is a real phenomenon: as women ditch their dresses, blouses, slacks, and sweaters for leggings, tunics, yoga pants, and fitted sweatshirts, city streets are looking more and more like B roll for a Star Trek episode.

Lole stands for Live Out Loud Everyday. “I have no idea” where the umlaut came from, Reymann says. It seems to be a Nordic-like flourish bestowed, like the one in Haeagen-Dazs, by a marketing department. In the semiotics of marketing, Scandinavian words suggest purity and sustainability. Lole is a Montreal company formed in 2002. Mainly known for its comfortable, outdoorsy outerwear and more recently shifting into the “lifestyle” niche–another name for activewear/athleisure, Reymann laughs–the company promises sustainability with a “closed loop” product cycle.

Though comfortable and outdoorsy, Lole-designed wear does not produce the blocky, androgynous silhouette favored by some outerwear companies. Instead, Lole “is about small details in clothing to give it that feminine touch. Like really cute hardware on jackets, or where they put seaming.” Lole pants have “front-facing or rear-facing seams,” she explains, which are more flattering than straight side seams.

Lole stores carry mostly, but not exclusively, the Lole brand–Sorel, also founded in Canada, is a no-brainer. Originally known for its utilitarian work boots, Sorel’s now owned by Oregon sportswear giant Columbia and diving deep into women’s fashion–including some very citified boots clearly designed more for a Montreal subway than mushing dogsleds.

Reymann nimbly answers the potentially uncomfortable question of how lululemon, just a few doors down, greeted the arrival of Lole (it probably didn’t lol). Lululemon also specializes in form-fitting yoga wear, and in fact is often credited with starting, or at least reviving the “athleisure” trend. She says diplomatically, and even credibly, that North Face also carries activewear as well as outerwear, and in fact all the women’s clothing in Arbor Hills blends with Lole products. (Reymann herself is wearing her favorite “wicked soft” Basilica leggings by Lole with a Free People shirt from V2V.) “People love it. They know they can come [to Arbor Hills] and bang out that whole category of their wardrobe.”

Reymann says that all Lole stores are franchises; this store’s franchisee, Christina Gaskins, also owns Loles in Rochester and Royal Oak. Lole encourages franchise owners to carry locally produced artisanal products, and Reymann says she is actively looking for more to supplement the Chelsea-made For Vera brand of scented candles and soaps.

Lole is famous for an annual outdoor yoga event called the Lole White Tour. Reymann and Gaskins are lining up the location for the Ann Arbor event (“maybe the Arb,” says Reymann) in which participants, all wearing white, will do 108 yoga sun salutations on the longest day of the year. The event, she says, costs around $15, but participants will get a swag bag, including a yoga mat.

Lole, 3070 Washtenaw (Arbor Hills Shopping Center), 864-4742. Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-8 p.m., Sun. noon-6 p.m. lolewomen.com