A long time ago I realized that dressing without showing brand logos was much, much classier. E.g. shop at J. Crew or Uniqlo (no logos on any shirts) and not Ralph Lauren or Tommy Hilfiger (damn polo player/flag on every single shirt). There are plenty of brands/pieces without logos.
It baffles me, though, why athletic gear isn't the same. Everyone winds up sporting their allegience to Nike or Adidas or Puma or Under Armour or Reebok or Lululemon or whatever it is. I'm unaware of any major athletic brand, where I can buy a full range of workout gear (tees, shorts, sneakers) that doesn't advertise itself.
I don't get it. Why isn't there a J. Crew or Uniqlo of workout gear?
(Even brands that sell mostly unbranded clothing seem to compulsively slap some kind of "signature" on their workout gear specifically, e.g. Gap attaches it's own special Gap-athletic logo, and Old Navy has a kind of signature stripe on everything.)
As for unbranded workout clothes, you can always try a military surplus store. Not all of the clothes there are camo style.
- Athletic activities are social and visible, especially in professional sports.
- It’s technically difficult to start an athletic company without access to significant IP in producing advanced athletic gear - both from engineering as well as manufacturing aspects.
It’s not too difficult to start a T-Shirt company. It’s monumentally difficult to develop your own Gore-Tex or Dri-Fit, Flyknit fabric, construct clothing or shoes from it and manufacture it at scale.
1. You might not have the IP to make high quality athletic clothing because maybe it is difficult to find the right combination of materials.
2. Fabric companies probably don’t want to sell small quantities of fabrics produced in large volumes.
3. Some fabrics may be limited to specific companies by contracts.
I also claim manufacturing at scale is not necessary to start a company making athletic clothing.
I think it probably is possible to find a niche as a small company selling (expensive) athletic clothing. I think it’s also possible that the fabrics used by mainstream athletics companies are not necessarily the best around as products made from these fabrics typically need to be made in large volumes reasonably cheaply and I would expect newer better/experimental fabrics to be neither available in very large quantities nor reasonably cheap.
I would certainly expect such a company to exist even though I don’t know of one.
As someone who spends 99% of his life in Adidas "athleisure" clothing, that's sorta part of the point for me. It just feels nice associating myself with their brand for some reason, no idea why. I guess it's like how some people associate themselves with their town, football team, or text editor, perhaps.
I do have a dealer license plate surround for a dealer that's 3+ hours away; we got the car 2nd hand. It's entirely because I don't care enough to change it, as it would cost me money and time.
There's probably the opposite of signalling going on somehow here... where I'd rather people who think that makes me tacky stay away from me because I think they're shallow. ;)
Also, notice how many cars have advertising for the dealership on them as stickers or license plate surrounds. Why do people leave that junk on their cars?