Sportswear booms, with women’s apparel leading change

Even with people leaving the house again, the sportswear and athleisure market shows no signs of slowing with women’s products a particular point of change.

What’s going on

• It’s earnings season, and some sportswear firms like Adidas are revising their outlook upwards, with the German giant now expecting sales growth of 20% this year.
• Other firms expecting to grow sales by a fifth or more include Under Armour and Puma, while Nike expects sales to stretch beyond $50 billion this year, the Business of Fashion reports.
• Sports brands are promising enough forward momentum that non-native companies are joining the race. Levi’s announced recently that it is acquiring Beyond Yoga activewear. Levi’s itself is seeing a significant change in customer tastes, as a preference for more relaxed cuts during the pandemic saw revenues climb 156%.

Women driving change

• While both men and women are spending on comfortable clothes to work and work out in, women’s apparel is seeing major innovation, as Reuters reports from the Olympics, where new women-focussed cuts are adapting to athletes’ longstanding requests.
• According to Allied Market Research, quoted by Reuters, the global women’s activewear market is forecast to reach $217 billion by 2025.
• Adidas, for instance, now makes a range of different products that are “period-proof.”

Key quote

“This Olympics, women are really taking center stage. It's not necessarily a new conversation, but one that's really at a head” – Tania Flynn, Creative Director, Women’s Apparel, Nike.

Sourced from Business of Fashion, Reuters