Inditex Takes On the Activewear Market

PARIS — On a fresh autumn Sunday in September, the Eiffel Tower’s glass-walled event room pulsed with music, yoga mats and stationary bikes. Curious tourists peered inside as dozens of women in stylish workout sets jumped, twisted and panted to upbeat sounds.

The participants had signed up weeks in advance for the class, which was hosted by Oysho, the burgeoning women’s activewear brand from Zara-owner Inditex. Along with its workout app and run clubs organised via Whatsapp, Oysho introduced an event series last year called “community days,” offering free, limited-capacity workouts, often staged in Instagramable locations in cities like Milan, Mexico City, Paris, Istanbul, Warsaw and Madrid.

The brand’s aim is to expand its circle of fans — and ultimately to increase its slice of the crowded activewear space.

The category has grown faster than fashion overall in recent years, with brands like On, Alo Yoga, Vuori and more vying for sales and chipping away at the long-held dominance of the category’s incumbents. McKinsey estimates the global sportswear market will reach $433 billion this year, climbing to nearly $550 billion by the end of the decade.

These dynamics have created opportunities for newcomers, as well as hurdles: Activewear has become saturated — both in the sense that consumers have filled their closets over the years, and in that so many competitors have entered the space that it’s become harder than ever for brands to differentiate themselves.

Oysho is targeting the gaps that remain in price, style and geography. While many of its rivals are going premium to attract consumers, Oysho believes there’s still white space for brands that can hit the sweet spot between cost and quality, offering function and flattering fits at a lower price than its competitors. The brand’s black leggings retail at €35 ($40), compared to Lululemon’s €98 ($113).

“The fit needs to be perfect and the customer should feel guapa – pretty,” said Sensi Espada, Oysho’s commercial director.

The brand is also targeting Europe first, followed by the Middle East and Latin America. North America, where competition is fierce and companies such as Nike and Lululemon reign, is not a top priority for the moment.

Free events like its Eiffel Tower class, meanwhile, let Oysho appeal to new customers and build community, following a proven playbook activewear brands have used for years.

“Oysho’s community project marked a real turning point,” said Valentina Rojas Herreros, a Madrid-based fitness studio owner and one of the brand’s ambassadors. “In just a few months, the vast majority of the fitness community in Spain turned to Oysho.”

The strategy is yielding results. Oysho reported an 11.8 percent year-on-year revenue growth in 2024, and it projects continued double-digit sales growth across its target regions for next year.

From Pajamas to Sportswear

Oysho’s path hasn’t been a straight line. When it launched in 2001, it sold cutesy pajamas and seasonal gimmicks like ugly Christmas sweaters. But seeing an opening in athleisure, the brand pivoted towards sports and wellness in 2019, according to Espada.

“The market responded quickly,” she said. “That shift accelerated after the pandemic, when the world remade itself around comfort and mobility.”

The brand’s expansion has been enabled by its parent company’s muscle. Within a group context, Oysho remains small, but its size also allows Oysho room to experiment, while it still has Inditex’s vast resources to draw on.

“Inditex combines the scale of a global player with the agility of a smaller firm, enabling opportunistic growth and rapid operational moves,” said JP Morgan analyst Georgina Johanan.

Oysho’s design team in Barcelona iterates quickly from input it gets from its stores, community events and the fitness studios it partners with, launching small weekly drops and bi-weekly collections to test fabrics, fits and features. That agility has produced details like odour-wicking fabrics, astronaut-inspired thermic protection and redesigned compression leggings.

“We ask the community girls and clients what they need from us, what could be better,” Espada said. “The most important thing is for our clothing to have some added value, since competition is strong.”

It takes around six months for products — from being designed in-house in Barcelona, then produced in Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Bangladesh — to hit Oysho’s stores.

Around Europe, the brand has gained a visible foothold. At The New Me, a partner pilates studio in Paris, women atop reformer machines style their Oysho sets with Van Cleef jewellery and sleek buns, ready for the mirror selfie.

The two-story flagship at Paris Madeleine, which like the Amsterdam store opened this year, is bustling seven days a week. A Berlin flagship is set to open later this month.

In-store purchases make up the majority of Oysho’s sales, though the brand is focused on growing online as well. Wholesale partners include Zalando, Asos and Trendyol.

Oysho’s Growth Plans

Currently, the brand’s key frontiers are the UK and European countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands, where athleisure continues to gain ground in a wellness-welcoming cultural shift. Secondary growth markets currently include Latin America, the Middle East and Turkey. In Colombia, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Panama, Oysho works with franchise partners.

“I’d say 80 percent of my clients wear Oysho,” said Dubai-based pilates instructor and brand ambassador Elizabeth Nicolaou.

While it may be tempting to enter the valuable US market, on that front Oysho is being patient.

“We are very ambitious,” Espada said. “But we need to be very strong in Europe in order to jump over to the US in the right way. The US has lots of competition; to be there you need to be super clear on your growth strategy.”

To date, that strategy has remained simple and direct: no gimmicks, no splashy influencer stunts — just a careful, iterative march: quality fabric, flattering fit, frequent drops and free classes that turn customers into a community.

Oysho has also eschewed the route of celebrity tie-ups, raised to a new level recently with NikeSkims, the sneaker giant’s recently unveiled sub-brand in collaboration with Kim Kardashian’s underwear label.

Instead, Oysho cultivates ground-up ambassadors, notably fitness professionals — “pilates instructors, boxing coaches, yoga teachers,” said Espada. “We want our customers to see and hear about our clothing from the most relevant people who use them.”

They also frequently double as models in Oysho’s campaigns.

“Their communication feels authentic, approachable and consistent, and they clearly know who they’re speaking to: women of all shapes, lifestyles and backgrounds — women many can relate to,” said Rojas Herreros, adding that most of her students dress in Oysho.

While the brand undoubtedly faces a tough market, so far it seems to be successfully finding the gaps where it can grow. With the deep pockets and operational backing of Inditex, it’s steadily expanding, product drop by product drop and workout class by workout class.