Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Yes, athletic gear x1000.

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.)

I had the same realisation years ago when I was going through a bit of a James Bond phase. I realised that all of Bond's clothes that aren't suits are block colours, with no embellishments.

As for unbranded workout clothes, you can always try a military surplus store. Not all of the clothes there are camo style.

I’ve also wondered the same. I can think of a couple of reasons:

- 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.

I’m not sure I totally buy that it is difficult to produce athletic clothing (shoes are different I think) without developing advanced fabrics and manufacturing. In particular I think many (most?) of these specialised fabrics are produced by fabric companies not fashion/clothing companies and that it is possible to buy these fabrics to manufacture your own clothes with some caveats:

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.

I don't know about sports clothing (tennis, running, etc.) but, for outdoor gear, there are absolutely boutique manufacturers of jackets and so forth (e.g. Feathered Friends in Seattle). Don't know of the top of my head if they have visible branding or not. Logos aren't universal though. I'm looking at a Merino wool LL Bean zip-neck shirt that doesn't have any external logo or branding on it.

Everyone winds up sporting their allegience to Nike or Adidas or Puma or Under Armour or Reebok or Lululemon or whatever it is.

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.

Atheletes are vehicles for advertisers. Athetic gear is arguably a hybrid between clothing and equipment. I don't know any reputable golf clubs or soccer balls that aren't branded. I wouldn't say that old Navy is advertising themselves with their logo; they seem to be imatating the biggest players.

I have some workout clothes with no visible branding, and I think it's of pretty good quality (at least the manufacturer is wuite famous for their high-tech fabrics and general quality)but interestingly it is much more expensive that your run of the mill Adidas or Reebok (not quite sure why I ended up having it either...).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com