When you dig into athleisure market trends, you’ll find two very different schools of thought for ecommerce brands. The first is to build a hyper-specific, niche brand with a cult following. The second is to adapt the trend for a broad, mass-market audience, treating it as the new standard for casual wear. Picking the right camp for your business is the most important decision you'll make.
Camp A: Build a Niche, Community-Driven Brand
This camp argues that the athleisure market is far too saturated for a new brand to compete on generalities. The only way to win is to stand for something specific and cultivate a loyal community around it. It’s about being the absolute best option for a very particular person or use case. On Future Commerce, Lee Glandorf talked about the rise of performance-oriented aesthetics, where brands like Tracksmith build an entire identity around connecting with niche athletic communities. You see this same playbook with Bandit Running, a brand focused on making running look cool, and with Legends, which, as CEO Scott Hochstadt explained on the Modern Retail Podcast, built its brand with help from pro athletes to establish credibility.
This strategy is also visible in how Tom Hunt is scaling sTitch Leggings, as he detailed on eCommerce MasterPlan. He’s not just selling leggings; he’s carving out a defensible niche in men's leggings. The case for this approach is that you can’t beat the giants at their own game. Instead of fighting for broad keywords or competing on price, you create a product and a story so specific that you become the only choice for your target customer. This allows for stronger brand loyalty, better margins, and a more sustainable path when scaling a DTC brand.
Camp B: Adapt the Trend for the Mass Market
This camp sees athleisure not as a niche, but as a total replacement for yesterday’s casual clothes. The opportunity here isn’t about creating a tight-knit community, but about serving the massive, mainstream audience that now expects comfort, function, and versatility from their everyday wardrobe. This is the strategy of major retailers.
On the Retail Remix podcast, guests Matt Powell and Tiffany Montgomery broke down how big-box stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Target are thriving by making athleisure a core part of their offering. They use their immense scale, operational efficiency, and existing customer bases to win. We hear about this on the Modern Retail Podcast, too, with reports of mall-based retailers like Pacsun successfully moving into men’s athleisure. For these companies, it’s a category expansion. They aren't trying to build a new identity from scratch. Instead, they leverage their supply chains to offer good-enough quality at a compelling price, making athleisure accessible to everyone. This is a volume play that relies on being a convenient and recognizable option for the average shopper.
For most entrepreneurs and direct-to-consumer brands, I believe Camp A is the only viable path. The mass-market game is brutally competitive and capital-intensive. You need massive scale to compete with Target or Amazon on price and convenience, and you need a nine-figure marketing budget to compete with Nike or Lululemon on brand awareness. The success stories we hear from founders on podcasts like Shopify Masters are almost always about finding an unmet need or a unique angle in a crowded market. The opportunity isn't in the middle anymore; it's on the fringes.
So, if you’re a startup or a growing DTC brand, my advice is to commit fully to the niche strategy. Don't just dip your toe in. Figure out exactly who you're for and what makes you different, and then build your entire brand around that. Your goal isn’t to be a choice for everyone, but a necessity for a dedicated few. However, if you're running an established business with a broad customer base that isn’t yet serving this market, look to Camp B. Your path is to integrate athleisure as a product category that aligns with your existing brand promise, making it an easy add-to-cart for the loyal customers you already have.
