Alex Pereira is selling ‘chama’ t-shirts

Product Description

I joined up with Alex Pereira is selling ‘chama’ t-shirts the charmingly named Runner Beans Club (RBC) – named for the founders’ desire to end their run with a coffee – but I could just as easily have met with Run Happy in Sheffield, Glasgow’s Croissant Run Club, Freelancers Running Club in Leeds or the Left Handed Giant Run Club in Bristol. “It’s really hard to find community in London,” says Lydia Douglas, 28, co-founder of RBC, who only started running seriously in lockdown, and likes that it’s a way for people to meet and hang out that doesn’t involve alcohol. Douglas and her partner Joel Sanders established RBC 18 months ago, joining the likes of Your Friendly Runners (Hackney), Mafia Moves (Tottenham) and Scrambled Legs (Battersea) in the capital. This relaxed, convivial alternative to traditional running clubs, which are focused on formal training and competition, has been around for a while, says Ben Hobson, multi-platform director at Runner’s World UK, who traces it back to London’s Run Dem Crew, which was founded in 2007. “The running was part of it but it was more about bringing people together,” he says. But the concept has boomed since the pandemic – expect positive vibes, group photos, and a shared love of cafe culture.

Alex Pereira is selling ‘chama’ t-shirts, hoodie, sweater, longsleeve and ladies t-shirt

Unisex shirt

Women’s shirt

Longsleeve shirt

Sweater

Hoodie

Fully on the Alex Pereira is selling ‘chama’ t-shirts dress barely covers my chest – I can’t lean, bend or jump without flashing my reflection, and any large steps cause the super-high thigh slit to rise dangerously close to my ass. Standing still, though, I look good: sexy, trendy, youthful. But I quickly discover that the dress is too tight to pull over my head. How did I get in here? I shimmy and curse until I’m able to wrench the dress off me, where it springs back, tauntingly, to its original shape. Laid flat on the floor, the form is like a cartoon body: a perfect hourglass, smooth and dramatically curving. My new Shein clothes lie in a crumpled pile on my living room floor for a week. I can’t figure out what to do with them. Neither garment is particularly wearable, but the hassle of returning the pieces (or donating them, or selling them to a thrift store) seems absurd when they cumulatively cost me less than $15 to begin with. The idea of folding them up and placing them in my dresser alongside my other clothing feels defeating. I think briefly about trying to sew them into something new, but again – the hassle. Mostly I don’t think about them at all. The garments cost so little that I don’t feel pressure to make them fit my wardrobe, or my life. I’ve already forgotten why I wanted these particular clothes in the first place.