Ask an Activewear Designer
Kicking off a new interview series talking about ballet style in Center Stage, inclusive sizing and more...
There’s an art and a science to making performance wear, especially gear aimed at female figures. I chafe at “Best of” lists, which – affiliates aside1 – tend to position single pieces of clothing as a solution for everybody and every body. It’s not an insight to say that this is far from true. One of my aims in chatting to women about how they dress for performance is to cultivate a range of perspectives on the gear that works for them and what’s missing from the market.
Today, I’m taking this a step further, speaking with activewear designers to better understand their process, the challenges, and the opportunities. If you pay attention to the media landscape, you’ll notice that, most often, the folks who get interviewed from apparel and shoe brands about launches are often fairly removed from the process – they’re CEOs, founders, CMOs. Sometimes you’ll hear from the designer behind a new product, but it’s usually in a few sound bites vetted by PR folks. Unlike high fashion, designers in the activewear realm are often faceless – “pay no attention to the (wo)man behind the curtain” – types toiling away to make the gear we love.
I couldn’t be happier, then, to kick off the series with a fascinating conversation with Emily Jagos. Emily’s career began in fashion at Guess, before she became steeped in performance with stints at Reebok and most recently, Adidas, where she’s a director working on apparel design innovation. Emily’s tackling new projects in 2025, so if this conversation excites you as much as it did me, be sure to reach out on LinkedIn or her website: ejagosdesign.com
Ask an Activewear Designer
Chatting with Emily Jagos
What was your introduction to sports? Do you remember what you wore?
When I was in grade school, I was enrolled in everything: softball, basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, and that all ended when I got to high school. I'll be the first to admit that team sports just aren't something I excel at. Cheerleading was the exception. Playing sports was an opportunity to be with my friends. I wore lots of Umbro, crappy school-logo cotton t-shirts; whatever hand-me-downs or TJ Maxx stuff I was given was worn to shreds. I'm thankful that I grew up in a pre-social media era, so none of us really cared what we were wearing or felt like we had to look a certain way. We were just there to hang, to play, to socialize. Ballet was my main extracurricular from preschool through college. Thankfully with ballet the uniform was pretty standard: pink tights, leotard, ratty sweaters, and legwarmers. I was always into simple, classic necklines, nothing fancy. It's definitely influenced my style now, and I tend toward ballet-inspired necklines and more streamlined looks.
As a dancer and designer, I am so curious about your take on the idea of #balletcore. I find all these concepts – tenniscore, horse girl style – are too cosplay for my tastes (and also largely driven by the algorithm and SEO so not entirely organic.) But! As a millennial devotee of Center Stage, I've got to say balletcore has always had an appeal. Much like Blue Crush made me obsessed with Roxy. I think the appeal of balletcore is the kind of mix of formal and informal – ballet is so strict, but ballerinas manage to subvert the uniform in a way that feels both cool and personal. TL:DR what do you think?
I'm with you on the exhaustive nature of every niche sport or hobby becoming some kind of costume to buy. If I were 22, maybe I'd be more into trying on different hats, but as an "old," I know what works for me. As a forever Center Stage devotée, I'll just never tire of the seemingly effortless style of ballet dancers. A simple scoop neck tank or wrap sweater looks good on so many body shapes, can be dressed up or down, and projects this sense of confident elegance that I love. It's such a versatile, flattering way to dress, and that's probably why it keeps getting recycled and re-introduced as a new "trend" every few years. Dancers have been dressing like this for decades, and it works, and it still looks great. Look at photos of Gelsey Kirkland rehearsing in the 70s, and she's wearing the same things that someone like Chloe Misseldine wears today. Center Stage is such a fun representation of how great dancers are at tweaking things to project their personal style, and just looking perpetually cool. My God, Eva's olive mock neck leotard and claw clip. Maureen's touseled bangs and pink wrap sweaters. Good style is good style!
What was your journey to becoming an activewear designer?
I studied fashion design in college, and wanted to pursue luxury fashion and couture for a time, as many fashion students do, but ultimately became pretty fixated on solving problems through design. As a pretty practical person, the idea of working somewhere like Adidas or Nike, where you designed things for a reason, just made sense to me. I moved to LA right after graduating and ended up taking whatever jobs I could find in fast fashion and denim. From the beginning, I knew that segment of the industry just wasn't for me. I wasn't good at churning things out. I learned a lot, though, about how to insert my more technical ideas into how we worked. I remember bringing Adobe Illustrator sketches and tech pack processes into my work at Guess in 2012, and the tech team being so excited about that. While I was still in LA working for Guess, I got a job designing for Reebok in Boston. I was elated to be able to shift to a place where I could learn about functional design. I learned so much at Reebok, and lucked out working for a team with high standards and an insane attention to detail. It's where I learned how to be a product perfectionist, and how to set my own high standards. After a few years in Boston, I moved to Portland to work for Adidas. I started designing women's training apparel for the North American and global markets, and worked my way up until I branched out and moved to the Innovation team in 2019, where I am the apparel design director.
You've been an activewear designer for 10+ years, how has your job and the space changed in that time?
There's been so much change since I started out, but ultimately the apparel industry moves so slowly, especially at a corporate behemoth like Adidas, that change has happened in pockets. Since I started working, the digital tools to create have exploded. Clo3D, Gravity Sketch, and AI tools like Vizcom have opened up new ways to create product. There's more opportunity to create things for people who aren't professional athletes or aren't straight-sized, who want to dress in a less gendered way or play a niche sport. Since I started in the industry, much more emphasis has been placed on women's product, thankfully. Over time, I've just come to realize that this path, being an apparel designer, can look different for everyone, and depending on what you are good at or what interests you, you can create a niche for yourself. You just have to find or create opportunities to carve that out for yourself. I have colleagues who are wizards at 3D creation, and that has led them down a totally different path than where they started at a brand. If you're super good with tinkering and making things by hand, or messing with machinery to create new processes, that's such a valuable skill now. With experience, I've just come to realize what I'm good at, and what I'm not good at, and I think now is such a great time to be a specialist in something, to have a really strong opinion on something like 3D creation or activewear or knitwear. Not everyone needs to be everything to everyone. Specialists are valuable for their deep level of knowledge on a particular subject or subset of the industry.
What are the key things you think about when it comes to designing for performance?
I've worked in Innovation for the past six years, so I approach product creation by asking, "What is the problem that needs to be solved?" With innovation at Adidas, more often than not, we're working with athlete scientists and engineers and material scientists, in addition to a traditional apparel team set up of development and marketing, so there are more cooks in the kitchen, higher stakes, and the ask that we deliver something that performs a function, like making someone faster, or stay cooler, or creating something that has never been seen before. When I was designing training apparel, I approached things with my own taste level and POV, which I had spent years developing, and focused on immersing myself in the culture of fitness, which felt natural, because I love working out. As a consumer and a creator, it felt like a really authentic place to be. What do women like wearing? What resonates? I worked a ton on bras and tights, and drew from my design background and style preferences and applied them to really beautiful, modern product that I felt women would love. I still get excited when I see someone wearing something I designed, because I really put my heart into everything. Designing things that fit beautifully, that aren't overdesigned, feel amazing, and are considered down to the smallest detail have always been a part of my practice. Less is always more, I think.
From my experience, designing activewear for women is a little more nuanced than making gear for men. Our bodies come in so many different shapes, that can make technical gear work differently if say – you're a size M with hips vs a size M who is more straight up and down. Can you talk about how fittings work and grading apparel for different sizes?
Most brands have set fit blocks they work from, so if I'm designing a pair of tights, for example, I'll start with a particular fit block for tights, whether it's a less compressive fit for yoga or sportswear, or a tighter compression fit for training or running. Those have different base patterns associated with them, and combined with whatever material you choose and the elastane content, and any additional design changes you make, that determines how the overall garment will fit. Some brands have gotten a lot better about revising their fit blocks to be more accommodating to more body types, and in selecting better materials, so things just fit better. When it comes to fittings, a brand will have set measurements they want their fit models to have, which line up with the size specs of their base fit blocks. Creating all samples in size small is most common for women's product development, so the fit model needs to have specs that match what the brand is asking for, to ensure that things are fitting consistently from style to style, and from one product round to the next. For inclusive size apparel, often a brand will just grade up an XL and hope for the best. What I learned from working on the first inclusive size range for Adidas with a really amazing group of women, was that you need to start your patterns from scratch. It's a whole different ball game, from creating base patterns to grading up and down. The body's proportions change in different ways from a 2X to a 4X, compared with a size small to a large, so new grade rules have to be created. These consumers are smart. They know when brands cheat on their fits and grading for inclusive sizing, and they make that clear by buying elsewhere.
What are some trends in the space you're excited about?
I'm always excited to see niche sports and communities being catered to in a thoughtful way. I loved your interview with Amanda Greeley about her new brand, Spence, and your interview with the team behind Hikerkind. There's room for more sophistication, more considered product, smaller offerings. The attention to detail the design teams put forth for both Spence and Hikerkind, and this sense of timeless modernity, is so evident. Not everything has to be huge, blown out in a million styles and colors. There is room for things to be small! I also love when brands create a sense of community around what they're doing. You see that from Hikerkind, Arc'teryx, and On really pushing their own networks of outdoor lovers and runners, and those efforts paying off for them financially. People want to be around others after Covid, and I love this resurgence toward community fitness, and coming together in pursuit of making new friends while also learning something new, or pushing yourself in a new way. Business-wise, it's also good for the bottom line. Ultimately, there is just so much product out there, so many brands, so many influencers, that the space is over-crowded with ideas created by people who don't know how to design and create products rooted in a strong point of view, in design and apparel experience and expertise. I think that's why I resonate so much with more considered offerings and really thoughtful ideas created by experts.
What kinds of gear do you like to work out in?
I know what works on my body at this point; what feels good, what length of tights are the most flattering, what makes me feel confident. I'm a die-hard Lululemon leggings gal. Align 25" for yoga and sculpt, and Wunder Train 25" for weight training. They fit like a dream, they last forever if you take good care of them, and as someone who works out every day and teaches fitness classes on the side, they're some the most reliable products I own. Fit and materials are king for me. I'm not big on pockets, details, cut-outs, prints. Simplicity means I can focus on my workout. I prefer to buy a set wardrobe and wear it forever. Showing up in the newest thing just isn't important to me, and I think that's just because I know my body and sense of style when it comes to workout apparel, what works for me, and I can spot quality when I see it from being in the industry for such a long time. I'll also evangelize for the few Outdoor Voices pieces I own, purchased a few years ago. Their (discontinued) Doing Things woven shorts are primo for ladies with hips and butts. I love them so much in the summer and wish they'd bring them back. They're so versatile, flattering, and comfortable.
Is there anything you think is missing from the market
It's disheartening to see brands divesting from inclusive sizing, after such huge momentum around 2020. It's happening quietly across the industry, on the runway, and includes activewear brands, too. I've worked on inclusive and adaptive product throughout my career, and recently my team delivered first-to-market wheelchair basketball uniforms (shameless plug! ). I think there's more room for product that helps people who don't have access to anything that works for them. Inclusivity isn't a trend. These people have money! Give them opportunities to spend it! This is a hill I will die on.
Quick Thoughts
Things that Drew my Eye or Ire…
Few folks are as plugged into what’s happening in running culture as Raziq Rauf, so I appreciated his take on the goings on at TRE.
The historian in me was more than a little obsessed with this story on Florence Ilott, a caterer at the House of Commons in the 30s who was the first to accomplish the Westminster Bridge challenge. “No one knows exactly how or when, but a tradition started around running the Westminster Bridge, which crosses the River Thames just outside the Parliament building, where the famed Big Ben clock tower also stands. The challenge? To start at the stroke of noon when Big Ben clanged its first chime, and make it across the bridge before its twelfth and final chime.” For the feat, the diminutive Illott wore a simple shirt and shorts. I love the square neckline and trim of her top. This was 1934. What’s striking to me is that if you look at pictures of Julia Chase in 1961 at Manchester Road Race or Bobbi Gibb at Boston in 1966, its clear that the options available for amateur women runners didn’t change much over the course of thirty years!
.This is such a cool stat – the Sabrina 2’s are the 3rd most worn sneaker in the NBA this season after the Kobe 6 and Kobe 4s.
If you've been following closely you’ll know I’m not one to give Nike a lot of love, so two positive links in a row is almost unheard of. Still, I like this collaboration Nike’s doing with makeup artist Isayma French for a lot of reasons. As the sports/fashion/beauty overlap continues to grow, tapping icons from different verticals is a fresh way to inject some newness into the category
Speaking of beauty and sports, Grace Cook has a story in the Financial Times on how athletes are making makeup a core part of their pre-game preperations. Grace has been quietly carving out a sports/fashion vertical at the FT – it’s well-worth a follow.
If you’re in the midst of your holiday shopping spree, might I suggest reviewing my Sporty Gal’s Gift Guide for some ideas? If you needed convincing that women are really keeen to spend on activewear (and you probably don’t since you’re reading this newsletter), I’ll note that the Gift Guide is my second-best performing newsletter to date, second only by a few views to my slightly spicy take on the last decade of running fashion.
I did not participate in Black Friday sales except to succumb to Crown Affair’s brilliant marketing (cheers to founder Dianna Cohen) and purchase some air-drying moose that is apparently ideal for frizzy Irish-haired women like me. I also (and this is decidedly a brag) snagged this unworn (tags on!) LLBean barn coat at a vintage store in Northampton,MA for $60.
If you’re interested in the economics of affiliates, this Shop Rat article by Emilia Petrarca is well worth your time.