Former model launches yoga leggings with built-in knee pads

Fiona Devaney, former model and yoga teacher, launches leggings with integrated knee pads.

Devaney founded Maät to try to eliminate the need for yogis to reach for blankets in class to cushion their knees. Its Maät 1.0 leggings with built-in knee pads will retail for $148 starting Wednesday on the company's website. Additional colors and additional fabric will be introduced for the holidays.

Nervous about starting a business and building inventory during the pandemic, the company opted for a soft launch with pre-orders on Kickstarter last summer. Along with consumer feedback and community building, this route allowed Maät to avoid Facebook and Instagram ad spend and build a supportive following, Devaney said. This fall, Maät will be hosting outdoor yoga classes to connect more with this community.

Related Galleries

An official media launch event is scheduled for July 26 at Souk Yoga Studio in New York City — Devaney's favorite place to take classes, and also an operation that opened during the pandemic. The Flatiron District studio unveils a bar and cafe in an effort to build its own community. With more time to practice yoga during the shutdown, Devaney practiced more frequently at home, but said she "seriously could have cried with joy" after being able to attend in-person classes at the Souk.

With 20 years of experience, Devaney currently teaches people privately, not in the studio. An advanced student, she first studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology at the age of 16 as a high school graduate. "I remember a teacher saying to me, 'You're too young'. You shouldn't be here. I didn't understand then, but I understand now," she said.

Despite this, she earned an associate's degree in fashion design and a bachelor of arts in production management. At first she didn't use those degrees, and after she was scouted, Devaney took up modeling - a Fendi show in the mid-'90s was a career highlight. She had tried yoga for a physical education requirement at FIT, and she began to approach it more seriously after her modeling agent suggested that yoga or ballet might improve her posture. p>

When she quit modeling, she turned to teaching yoga. "One of the reasons I find this so interesting is that you really get to know people. Yoga is not just about moving your physical body. The way you move in your yoga practice is the way you move through life. If you are someone who is frustrated in your yoga practice or very hard on yourself, that is how you are in life. We are trying to change your reaction to practice on the mat, so that when you go out into the world, you can soften your ways into the world, and that changes everything."

His yoga students have included J. Lindeberg and BLK DNM founder Johan Lindeberg and Bob Melet of Melet Mercantile. While teaching at the latter, she started working a Friday afternoon shift at the New York City outpost of Melet Mercantile because she loved vintage. When Melet mentioned he needed crochet bikinis, Devaney offered to design 20 or 30 of them. their price and found freelancers unreliable. "But I learned a lot from that. And it kind of opened my eyes to [the idea] 'Oh, I really like that,'" she said

Despite her ties to the fashion industry, Devaney said, "While I was trying to achieve this, as someone with no name in the industry, I struggled a lot in so that people talk to me."