4 ms·

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 techn

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.

dan-robertson 8y ago
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.
- ghaff 8y ago
  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.

dan-robertson 8y ago

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.

ghaff 8y ago
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.