Uncovering How Apparel Shapes Active Lifestyles

Challenge

Bring to light the everyday athlete to inspire brand purpose, expression, and future product development.   

Activewear plays a different role in everyone’s life, from high-intensity adventures to slow Sunday mornings in soft, familiar layers. Our client, an outdoor lifestyle retailer, needed to better understand who their core consumer really is and what drives them to choose, use, and love activewear apparel. We set out to uncover how apparel supports the full spectrum of people’s active lives, and what inspires long-term brand loyalty along the way.

Approach

We took a multi-phase approach, starting with cultural and category desk research to identify the macro forces shaping today’s activewear landscape. From there, we spoke with activewear purchasers to hear firsthand how apparel fits into their everyday movement, what they wear, when they wear it, and why it matters. These conversations helped surface the emotional and functional roles apparel plays in people’s active lives. To round out the story, we layered in quantitative research to validate and scale what we’d heard, mapping product preferences, shopping behavior, and brand familiarity across key segments.

Impact

This work revealed that our client’s consumer is far more multifaceted than a single activity or archetype. By tapping into the real rhythms of how people move, rest, and dress, we gave the brand a more grounded, emotionally resonant foundation for future growth. The insights inspired a fresh look at brand purpose, streamlined priorities, and guided more meaningful product and retail decisions anchored in what really drives people to choose and stick with activewear brands.