Planning Your First Activewear Collection: Fabric, Fit and Colour
Planning a custom activewear collection is quite different from planning swimwear. Activewear ranges are usually more focused, with fewer colour choices, and success depends on picking the right fabric and getting the fit right. Brands with four or five well-fitting styles often do better than those with a bigger range but poor fit.
Settle the fabric and the fit first. Everything else follows.
The Fabric Decision Comes First
Your customer will judge your activewear by its flexibility, feel, and whether it is squat-proof, often after just one wear. If you get these right, she will likely return to buy the same leggings in another colour.
Comfort Luxe is our most requested fabric, made with REPREVE recycled American nylon. Buttery soft with a cotton-like hand feel, closer to Lululemon or Alo than anything else stocked in Bali. It suits Pilates, court sports, recovery days and elevated everyday wear, which is where most new brands are selling.
Motion Luxe is 73% recycled nylon at 250gsm, interlock woven, UPF 50+. A smooth second-skin finish with body-sculpting support and strong stretch recovery, so it holds its shape through repeated wear rather than sagging out. Suited to form-fitting pieces and studio training.
Both are squat-proof, moisture-wicking and eco-certified. Sample both and your customer will tell you quickly which one she is buying.
Eco Olympus remains available for brands built around high-intensity training, using Creora Power-Fit spandex from Korea for firm compression and shape retention. Fewer brands ask for it now, as most are selling into studio, athleisure and everyday rather than heavy gym.
Full specifications sit on our fabrics and colours page.
How Many Styles to Launch With
Most activewear brands launch with 4 to 8 styles. One or two shorts, a legging, two sports tops, and a skort or a piece that matches the activity you are selling into.
Waistbands deserve as much attention as fabric. Height, tension and whether the band stays flat through a squat separate a legging worn twice from one reordered in three colours.
The Colours That Actually Sell
Black. Then more black.
That is what the order book looks like. Activewear buyers commit to black first and build one or two supporting shades around it. This season, those have been soft warm white, chicory coffee, crush pink and vanilla gold.
Two or three colours across a focused range beats six spread thin. Depth in black lets you restock the sizes that move, rather than tying up budget in colours that sit.
We hold over 75 colours in stock, imported from Korea and the United States, with no minimums and no lead time.
Prints run rarely in activewear, though sublimation on polyester works well when a brand wants one, since the fabric never meets saltwater or chlorine.
Branding Buyers Notice
Custom elasticated jacquard waistbands are the branding that earns its cost. Your name woven into the band shows every time someone pulls the leggings on, and it reads as considered in a way a printed logo does not.
Heat-pressed logos, care and size labels and stock zip lock bags are included in the unit price.
Jacquard waistbands, hang tags and branded packaging are quoted alongside. Send artwork before sampling begins so branded components arrive on the physical samples, and you assess them with the fit.
Timing Your Launch
Activewear sells year-round, which removes the seasonal pressure swimwear carries. That makes the calendar easier and the discipline harder: without a fixed season, launch dates slip.
Allow two months from approved sample to sellable stock. Samples run 2 to 4 weeks, bulk 3 to 4 weeks, DHL Express delivery 3 to 5 days.
Top-ups start at 150 units, 30 per style and 5 per size and colour, so a style moving faster than forecast can be reordered without rebuilding a full order.
What it Costs
Our budgeting page sets out unit costs, delivered costs and margins for a first order.
Want to talk it through first, particularly around fabric weight and compression? Schedule a callback, and we will work through your styles, options and timing together. Or send your designs and pricing comes back in two to three working days.