Living legend, Academy Award-winning actress, tireless activist, and workout guru Jane Fonda has been tapped to face Swedish clothing brand H&M’s new Move collection, dropping August 4. Spearheading a new mission to make sportswear a little more accessible, the line offers practical and fashionable ‘movewear,’ supporting all bodies of all abilities to move confidently and comfortably through their days.
“I’ve spent a lot of my own life getting people to move and was naturally drawn to the mission of H&M Move to get the whole world moving,” Fonda said in an official statement. “I also really liked their philosophy of ‘movewear’ over ‘sportswear.’ To me, it’s not about sports or being the most athletic. It’s about giving your body the kind of movement it needs to stay healthy so it can take care of you.”
In concert with the collection drop, H&M will launch a global workout campaign led by both Fonda and renowned choreographer JaQuel Knight.
Ever the social and political activist, Fonda leveraged her uber iconic workout videos to accelerate a good cause. Along with her then-husband Tom Hayden, the activist power couple founded the Campaign for Economic Democracy. Dedicated to spreading the message that a fair democracy entails an even distribution of wealth, the couple wanted to instigate a transfer of power from America’s richest one percent and the wealthiest corporations to the rest of the country’s general public.
When they found themselves desperately needing funds, Hayden and Fonda began cooking up innovative business ideas to raise money for the cause and for Hayden’s State Assembly campaign.
That’s when Fonda conceived the idea for the number one home video of all time, Jane Fonda’s Workout. Owned by their Campaign for Economic Democracy, the VHS sold over 17 million copies, with all of the profits going towards the organization.
It’s rapid success garnered Fonda credit for putting the video industry on the map (VCR sales soared because of the workout’s popularity). Fonda even became the first non-engineer to be inducted into the Video Hall of Fame. Her coinciding book, Jane Fonda’s Workout Book, became the number one New York Times best-seller for a whopping two years.
While the fashion has evolved quite a bit since the neon leotards, spandex and leg-warmers debuted in her first workout video, Fonda is still looking cool and feeling the burn.
