Nike’s latest turnaround bet rests on the shoulders of that most comforting of loungewear items: the hoodie.
“There is nothing more authentic to sportswear than a fleece hoodie,” Jill Gonzalez, senior product line manager at Nike, told Retail Dive.
It’s one of the central items of Nike’s Studio Fleece line, a “unified system” of shorts, sweatpants, hoodies, zip-ups and quarter-zips that launched on Nike’s website and with select retailers Thursday. The product line is geared at women, though Gonzalez said it’s open to anyone, and it was formed with the insights of more than 300 women.
“She can find fleece from any brand, and we felt really strongly about making not only her shopping experience more simple, but also just starting to build out an ethos for what Studio Fleece could be and allowing her to like fall in love with it and be able to come back to it,” Gonzalez said. “We’ve spent a lot of time just obsessing it and really just wanting to make sure that it’s something that we will stand for for a long time.”
A focus point for Nike was simplicity: Studio Fleece comes in only two colorways at launch, as well as three weights (light, medium and heavy) and two fits (standard and oversize). At launch, there is one men’s product, the Solo Fleece, a mediumweight hoodie with much of the same features as the women’s hoodie.
How can we serve her the perfect hoodie year-round?
Jill Gonzalez
Senior Product Line Manager, Nike
Launching with a limited assortment allows Nike to test the market and create scarcity, according to Jessica Ramírez, co-founder and managing director of The Consumer Collective. Fleece is also having a moment right now, as evidenced by the success of Gap’s “Sweats Like This” campaign earlier this year.
“Gen Z seems to really love a fleece,” Ramírez said, adding that Studio Fleece looks to be directly targeted at the demographic. “We are in an era where there are two wardrobes … you’re not going to work out in your clothes that you went to work with because we are dressing up more, right?”
The Studio Fleece line leans into that; it provides both a wardrobe for relaxing in and can be used as a recovery option post-workout. Gonzalez said Nike was also focused on honoring fleece as a wardrobe staple and giving women a line that could be worn across settings, including to the gym, at home or out hanging with friends.
To that end, a campaign advertising the collection spans athletes and entertainers, from Olympic ice skater Alysa Liu to K-pop star Karina.
“They’re also wearing it 365 days a year,” Gonzalez said. “How can we serve her the perfect hoodie year-round? And also, knowing that it is a wardrobe staple for her, how can we create a piece that feels really versatile that can truly serve as that blank canvas in her wardrobe?”
Studio Fleece is distinct from Nike’s Tech Fleece line, which Ramírez noted was a best seller in the past. Tech Fleece “isn’t going anywhere,” Gonzalez said, but Studio Fleece is Nike’s way of simplifying some of its options for women. Nike’s intention was to create a line that women could keep coming back to, across seasons or wearing occasions.
The sensory experience of the hoodie was also important to Nike, Gonzalez said, as it’s often an item customers put on after a long day. The hoodie features silicone tips, a two-way zipper for ease of styling, and a darted and oversized hood that feels like a “cocoon,” according to Gonzalez. The company also invested in keeping its black colorway dark for longer; “total black” is a new launch for Nike and is intended to provide a richer black color for longer.
“I think this collection is great. The customer is looking for fresh new ideas,” Matt Powell, senior adviser with BCE Consulting, said via email. “When Nike introduced Tech Fleece some years ago, it changed the industry. This collection won’t be billions in sales but definitely a move in the right direction.”
Studio Fleece will be available globally on Sept. 1, with more styles to come. It’s a step toward refreshing Nike’s sportswear category, which has been a drag on earnings recently. While Nike has notched some wins in the performance category, sportswear declined double digits in Nike’s most recent quarter, with CEO Elliott Hill acknowledging that the company is not “living up to our full potential” in the space.
In the second half of the year, Nike is planning more than a dozen new footwear styles in the sportswear space, and it expects the category to start improving during that period.
“We understand the importance of getting both Nike Sportswear and Jordan Streetwear back to growth,” Hill said in June. Those two segments account for roughly half of Nike’s revenue. “With that said, our point of differentiation or point of distinction, what creates authenticity for Nike, is our sport business. And that creates the halo over both of those brands. It’s also what differentiates us from fashion brands. And so the reason why we’ve put so much time on the Sport Offense is because we believe that’s how we create that authenticity around that business.”
