Most of us hate competition, but Lorna Jane Clarkson knows that her athleisure brand wouldn’t be as big today without it. In fact, she praises the rivals.
“There is no way that I could have built activewear – although I do like to take the credit for it – to the size that it is today without competition,” Clarkson says. “It can actually help you and what you’re trying to achieve have more visibility, especially in other countries around the world.”
Clarkson officially launched her brand in 1989 after creating gear for herself as a fitness instructor that was both technical yet rather fashionable. Her classmates loved them, and so she made them some. Then, when she saw hundreds of women wearing Lorna Jane and being inundated with requests for more, she knew there was an opportunity.
But, on top of the usual start-up challenges, Clarkson was also attempting to establish a whole new fashion category: athleisure. While all the buyers of department stores loved the new trend, she quickly realised they didn’t know how to categorise it.
“I would be so excited, because they’d make this great order, and then I’d walk into the store and it would be in with the swimwear, or – God forbid – with the lingerie,” Clarkson says.
“I used to sit on the floor in tears with my husband, saying, How am I going to get them to understand what we’re doing?”
Today, the fitness and athletic wear market in Australia is worth over $4.2 billion according to CBRE’s ‘Fitness Becomes Fashion’ report. Sports apparel is expected to account for the largest share of the activewear retail market in 2025, generating $2.3 billion (55 per cent) of total revenue. Footwear and accessories follows, representing $1.5 billion (37 per cent) and $308.6 million (7.5 per cent) of total revenue respectively.
Established sportswear retailers such as Accent Group (Stylerunner), Super Retail Group (Rebel), JD Sports, Lululemon and Lorna Jane are currently dominating the Australian fitness clothing market, according to CBRE’s ‘Fitness Becomes Fashion’ report.
But driving category growth is one part of Lorna Jane’s success. The other part is spotting the opportunities and wasting no time tackling them.
“For example, leading up to the global financial crisis in 2007-08, we were still a small brand, and no one yet fully understood the category,” Clarkson says. “We were finding it difficult to get premium retail locations.
“But during the global financial crisis, bigger businesses slowed down completely, and they stopped expanding. So it gave us the opportunity to be offered these prime locations, and we took them.
“Running a business for 37 years is hard work, and you have to go with the ebb and flow, but I think you also have to make bold decisions. And everyone around us was saying, How can you open massive stores and more stores when everyone else isn’t doing that? But you just have to believe in what you’re doing and that you will do anything to make it work.”
Another thing Clarkson and her team learnt is that when challenging times arise and everyone is panicking and heading left, theytake a moment to pause, review the situation and remain calm. This is especially noted during COVID, when global supply chains were whacked about.
Clarkson said that at that time, you pretty much only had the stock in your warehouse to work with. But she saw an opportunity to buy back 40 per cent equity from its partner in what she called a deal of the century.
“At the time, everyone was trying to get out of the fashion industry because doors were closing down, and who knows what was going to happen. But our business has gone from strength to strength.”
But not everything will go your way, most especially in fashion. Clarkson says one of the more defining moments for the brand also happened during COVID. She and her husband Bill were attempting to establish the brand in the United States.
“Bill and I were spending a lot of time there,” Clarkson says. “We even bought a home there; we were so committed. But travelling became impossible. I couldn’t isolate in a hotel for two weeks every time I wanted to go to the US. So we had to make the really hard decision to close down retail there when there was so much opportunity ahead of us.”
That was 35 stores gone in the US, leaving behind around 98 stores in Australia.
“But in hindsight, it was one of the best things we ever did, because it made us realise that being the biggest activewear brand in the world wasn’t actually our best positioning. Now, we concentrate more on our Australia, New Zealand and China markets. We now want to be the best at what we do, instead of the biggest.
“That might seem like a really small shift, but for your team and their focus on innovation and quality and really evolving to meet your customers’ needs, it really has made a big difference. Our business is, quite frankly, the best it has ever been. And it’s smaller.”