Carbon38 is the Fitness Fashion Site of Your Dreams

Two childhood friends, one love for fitness and fashion. The result is a fantastic website curated for the modern, active lives of today’s women. We are talking about our newest online shopping obsession Carbon38.com, which features the most hard-working sportswear labels that make a style statement from the gym to the streets. After all, the site’s motto is #RUNinRUNway

So who is the brain behind the well curated digital destination?

Meet Katie Warner Johnson and Caroline Gogolak, two classically-trained dancers who met in ballet class when they were children, and later reconnected in collage — Harvard University to be exact. Warner Johnson has since become one of the most sought-after trainers, shaping the bodies of Emmy Rossum and Demi Moore. Gogolak’s love for fashion led her to positions at Yves Saint Laurent and Intermix, in addition to yoga teaching. The two young women swept through the Windy City last week for a Carbon38 class at the newly minted SoulCycle studio in Old Town, and we caught up with them to chat directional activewear-minded fashion, successes and more! So read on..

FashionFiles: How did the idea of Carbon38 come about?

Katie: About two-and-a-half years ago we came together and decided to go to a tech start up weekend in San Francisco, so we got there and we were the only none-Google or Facebook engineers. We pitched an idea for an online fitness platform because I was a trainer for seven years and Caroline was a fitness fanatic and, also, a certified yoga instructor. So we really love the fitness studio market, the SoulCycle crowd, it’s the new social center as women of our generation, and as personal fitness becomes the new personal luxury we really wanted to target that. So we went through an accelerator program about a year and a half later and settled on an e-commerce platform for active wear. We had about five brands that we really believed in, raised the money around that concept, launched around November 2013 with 15 brands and now we have relationships with close to 90. So it is just unbelievable how the market has grown.

FashionFiles: Tell us a little bit more about the activewear-minded fashion concept of Carbon38?

Katie: As ballet dancers, you’re born in Lycra, so we spent a lot of time in stretchy clothes. So much of how you look is really important, because it is a performing art. We actually used to have our leotards made to accentuate the length of our arms, or create longer leg lines, or create a smaller waist — we were always really sensitive to the aesthetic of what we were wearing. So when we graduated college and got into the real world, I was a trainer, in my business suit, and Caroline was a client. Nothing was really fitting our  aesthetic. There is certainly performance clothes out there and wonderful products provided by Lululemon and Nike, but we wanted something that was a little more personal.

Spandex is really becoming the new denim — the market is on fire right now. We’re wearing leggings not only to Soul Cycle class , but also to brunch, or picking up the kids, or to business meetings  so we wanted to find that seamless wardrobe.

FashionFiles: Walk us through the selection process of clothes and brands?

Caroline: It is a multi-brand platform, so we select the best brands that fit our customer and what she is looking for. We are launching our private label in late 2015, which we are working with a designer to come up with that collection.

Katie: We wear-test everything. Caroline is our head buyer, she tries everything on. We try everything, it’s performance and then it looks different than what we interpret work out apparel to look like, it’s more fashion forward but it still has those performance qualities to it. The fabric has to be machine washable, moisture-wicking, quick dry.  All of our models on our site are ambassadors for our brand, they’re all fitness professionals so we have this team of women that are wear testing our product and giving us that feedback, and that influences Caroline’s buys as she goes forward.

It’s sexy, it’s form-fitting, it’s machine washable, you can throw it in the washing machine if your kid spills on it you don’t have to worry about going to the dry cleaner. We’re transitioning away from fabrics that are not adaptable to our lifestyle and become more of a burden to wear and be comfortable all day long.

Caroline: We recognize this transition happening with performance fabrics and ready to wear designs and people are appointing it as ‘ath-leisure’, so it would be much easier to wear a button down blouse in a performance quality fabric that looks and feels a lot like silk that you can just throw into the washing machine.

FashionFiles: Besides on Carbon38.com, where else can we find your selections? 

Caroline: We have our first off-line pop up with Goop through May 10. So it is our first time being offline. [ Editor’s Note: the Goop pop-up in Chicago is located at the Waldorf Astoria]

Katie: We definitely have been working on building our ambassador program, so we do feel that fitness instructors are really like your therapist, your best friend; they influence so much in your life, so we see them as huge trendsetters. We partnered with that as a way to get our product offline and onto a body because I do think —  especially when you’re selling performance wear — that you really need to see it in action. That is something we have been working on and has allowed us to spread like wildfire —  we can target the instructor communities in all the major cities and really get our brand out there.

FashionFiles: Can you give our readers advice on what outfits to choose for different activities? 

Katie: For yoga, a lot of people gravitate towards these ‘less’ fabrics, they don’t have seems in your way and they’re very comfortable and really adapts to your movement;  it’s also super moisture-wicking. So a brand that a lot of our customers like for yoga is Nux. They have some really fun tie-dye prints and bright colors for the summer, which is a lot of fun. Then for spinning, there’s another brand, Pilot Athletic, that has really moisture-wicking qualities. The fabric that’s good from Pilot is called ‘diamond compression’. It keeps you held in and it wont be saggy or gross after class, and it will quick dry if you need to go run an errand. the Pilot Athletic capris, are my favorite, they have a sheer mesh seem down the side, so they have that sexy line and it also comes in a shiny, leopard fabric so it has a sexy, disco print. They suck everything in and they have extra seeming in the butt. I would recommend these more for weight training than a spinning class, but they look so great so I’m wearing them to the SoulCycle class.