The Debrief

For more than a decade, activewear shoppers largely looked to Lululemon and Nike. But as the post-pandemic boom cools and growth becomes harder to find, a new crop of brands is gaining traction.

Smaller labels like SetActive, 437 and Oner Active aren’t reinventing activewear. They’re winning customers through social media, creator-led marketing and a deep understanding of today’s fitness culture where consumers move fluidly through workouts like pilates, Hyrox and tennis on any given week.

In this episode of The Debrief Podcast, retail editor Cathaleen Chen joins senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young to discuss why these newer brands are resonating, whether their momentum is sustainable, and what their success reveals about the challenges facing industry leaders Nike and Lululemon.

Key Insights:

The era of Lululemon as a status symbol may be ending. "Lululemon in the past two decades effectively cornered the market on activewear as a status symbol," Chen says. "I do think the era of Lululemon as a status symbol is ending ... if you're not going to be a status symbol, what will you be?"

Consumers are craving something new. The rise of brands like Set Active, 437 and Oner Active is being driven less by breakthrough product innovation than by a broader desire for novelty. "The answer that I got overwhelmingly from my reporting is that, honestly, we are just in this moment of desire for newness," Chen says. "People were like, ‘okay, I have Lululemon in my closet, what's next?’"

Founder-led social media is helping challengers compete. Rather than relying on big marketing budgets, many emerging brands are building audiences through creator-style content — from behind-the-scenes glimpses into product development to founders who function as influencers in their own right. "What they have done incredibly well is build organic followings on social media and be able to capitalise on certain TikTok trends," Chen says. “They have the benefits of … the founder coming in every day, trying on the products herself... it makes a big difference in being visible to the customer”.

Activewear is entering its own version of the indie beauty era. As consumers build wardrobes around multiple activities rather than a single sport, the category is becoming more fragmented and open to new players. "What's happening in activewear is very similar to what happened in beauty a few years ago," Chen says. "Where the category was dominated by a handful of brands … but we reached this inflection point where people want something that feels new."

Additional Resources:
The TikTok-Savvy Activewear Brands Stealing Market Share
Why Every Fashion Brand Thinks It’s a Sportswear Label Now
The Reign of Leggings Is Over. What’s Next?

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Fashion’s book obsession is no longer subtle. What started as the occasional literary reference has become a broader wave of book clubs, salon-style events, campaign imagery and products designed to signal that a brand — and its customer — has cultural depth. It’s all happening as reading rates are declining, but the image of the reader has never looked more fashionable.

This week on The Debrief, BoF reporters Haley Crawford and Shayeza Walid explain how books became fashion’s latest flex, and when the trend starts to look less like culture and more like marketing.

Key Insights:


Books have become fashion’s new status symbol: Literature has always inspired fashion, but both reporters argue the relationship has become far more explicit. “We felt like books were being productised by fashion itself,” says Walid. In a world saturated by digital content, books now function as markers of cultural literacy and intellectual identity. As Crawford puts it: “You actually have to take the time to read a book from cover to cover. Fewer people are doing that today, so it is more of a flex to have read the book and actually understand the reference.”

TikTok is fueling an analogue revival: Ironically, fashion’s literary turn is being accelerated by social media. Online subcommunities like BookTok have transformed reading into a visible identity and community marker for younger consumers. “Social media, the stores, the products you’re buying and this analogue signalling, are all coming together,” says Walid. “ I don’t think this is happening in a silo. I think it’s very interconnected to other forms of analogue connection that people are finding nowadays.”

Not every literary collaboration resonates equally: Both reporters argue that the strongest examples are those rooted in genuine engagement with literature rather than surface-level branding. Crawford points to Prada’s collaborations with authors and literary scholars as examples of brands building deeper cultural worlds. Walid highlights Chanel’s funding of a library at a Shanghai art museum. “It was actually creating or funding something which allowed people to engage with books and literature,” she says.

The trend risks losing its cultural power: Fashion using books as a cultural signal is likely to lose some potency if every brand adopts the same strategy. “The ones that have been doing it for quite some time will continue to do so. But those that have maybe slapped a book name on a T-shirt or created a book tote might see less success,” says Crawford. “The second consumers start noticing the corporatisation of this trend, it is going to start to become stale,” adds Walid.

Additional Resources:
How Books Became Fashion’s Favourite Flex | BoF
When Taste Is All Over TikTok | BoF

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The rise of GLP–1 drugs, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, is forcing fashion and beauty companies to rethink everything from sizing and fit to product development. With one in eight Americans having tried a GLP–1 medication, brands are grappling with how to serve consumers whose bodies may be changing more rapidly than traditional product cycles were designed to accommodate.

In this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young sits down with BoF senior news and features editor Diana Pearl and The Business of Beauty news and features editor Brennan Kilbane to discuss how fashion and beauty brands are responding to the GLP-1 boom — and why the industry's apparent willingness to adapt to these consumers is raising difficult questions about its long history with size inclusivity.

Key Insights:

GLP-1s have turned into a fashion infrastructure problem: GLP-1 drugs are creating a new kind of consumer need — not just smaller sizes, but clothes and products that can accommodate rapid physical change. For fashion, this exposes the limits of systems built around relatively stable bodies, from fit models to inventory planning to alterations. As Pearl puts it, the industry may be talking more openly about fit, but real change will be slow because the underlying systems are deeply entrenched. “I don’t think it’s going to be a change that happens overnight or even in the next few months,” she says. “This is something that’s going to take years to fully address.”

The best brand responses meet customers where they are: Brands such as Soma offer one model for how to respond: create products for bodies in transition without framing that change as something to fix. Pearl says that approach works because it centres practical need rather than aspiration or shame. “It’s really just making it about: ‘okay, your life has changed, your body has changed, let’s meet you where you are,’” she says. Kilbane adds, “It's possible that we’re going to continue to see more people fluctuating in their weight and it’s quite forward-thinking for a fashion brand to accommodate that changing body.”

Beauty is already speaking more directly to the GLP-1 consumer: Beauty and wellness brands are moving faster than fashion in addressing the physical effects of rapid weight loss, from skin laxity to changes in facial volume. According to Kilbane, the category has to have a clearer product rationale for entering the conversation and respond to specific consumer concerns with products and treatments that feel practical. As Kilbane says, “I’ve talked to a lot of plastic surgeons and dermatologists and even some skincare executives. There are things that happen to your skin when you take these medicines,” he says. “I think especially beauty and wellness brands do need to talk to this customer differently, because they are going through a different transformation.”

Fashion’s unresolved relationship with thinness: The GLP-1 conversation has provoked scepticism as plus-size consumers have long argued that fashion sizing is broken, yet the industry appears more willing to change when bodies are getting smaller. For Kilbane, this criticism is fair: “It’s hard to not see any of this as the fashion industry’s excuse to champion thinness once again,” he says. Pearl adds that the debate cannot be separated from fashion’s deeper history of exclusion. “On the surface, it’s about sizing, but you can’t talk about what’s going on and not talk about fashion’s history of championing thinness,” she says.

Additional Resources:
How Ozempic Is Forcing Fashion to Rethink Fit
Novo Nordisk Looks Beyond Weight Loss to Longevity and Aesthetics
At Wellness Resorts, Ozempic Becomes Part of the Menu
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In May, sleeping bags lined pavements and police barriers went up outside Swatch stores from Times Square to Dubai. The object of this global hysteria was not a piece of high-end mechanical art, but the "Royal Pop" – a $400 pocket watch collaboration between mass-market giant Swatch and watchmaker Audemars Piguet. Based on AP’s iconic Royal Oak, which typically starts at $20,000, the launch divided the insular watch enthusiast community while captivating Gen Z consumers and equity analysts alike.

In this episode of The Debrief, senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young is joined by retail editor Cathaleen Chen and luxury editor Mimosa Spencer to evaluate the highs and lows of the fallout of the viral launch, the operational chaos across retail and whether a plastic pendant can truly serve as a long-term customer recruitment tool.

Key Insights:

The Strategy of Alternative Formats: By designing the collection as pocket and pendant watches rather than traditional wristwatches, Audemars Piguet aimed to protect the brand equity of its foundational core product while still opening the brand to a younger, accessory-loving Gen Z demographic.
An Unequal Value Exchange: While Audemars Piguet is treating the collaboration as an insulated, almost philanthropic “special project,” Swatch Group stands to gain significantly more commercial momentum. Despite some short-term negative sentiment driven by watch purists, the partnership represents a major cultural breakthrough for Swatch as it attempts to reverse recent financial stagnation.
The Accessibility Offense: The intense backlash from traditional watch collectors exposes a deeper tension within the luxury value proposition. For an industry built on status signaling and rigid gatekeeping, the mass participation of everyday consumers is often viewed by insiders not as democratization, but as a dilution of exclusivity in luxury watchmaking.
The PR Stunt Demerit: While market traffic and mainstream cultural buzz reached unprecedented stratospheres, the operational execution – which resulted in store closures and aggressive crowds – inflicted real in-person emotional damage. For legacy luxury institutions, headlines detailing retail chaos and police barricades run directly counter to the controlled, pristine environment that high-net-worth clients expect.
Entering the Cultural Conversation: The collaboration underscores a broader challenge facing the luxury sector: building cultural relevance and household-name recognition among younger consumers who may currently be priced out of $25,000 mechanical timepieces, while planting the seed for future customer loyalty.

Additional Resources:
How Swatch and Audemars Piguet Defied Collaboration Fatigue | BoF Professional
Pete Nordstrom on the Enduring Power of Retail’s ‘Best Mousetrap’ | The BoF Podcast
Can Department Stores Save Themselves? | The Debrief
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