2XU sportswear brand’s co-founder has a yarn about yarn
2XU's Aidan Clarke is bent on taking the niche line of compression clothing to the broader market
Not since surf labels Billabong and Ripcurl has an Australian company made the kind of global waves high-performance sports brand 2XU is creating.
The trio jumped at the chance to fill the high-performance sportswear niche, and 2XU has since become a favourite among the sporting elite for its unique compression-wear clothes.
We got a lot of good traction … all of a sudden they were on these world champions
Last year, LVMH-backed L Capital took notice. Davenport sold his 40 per cent stake to the group in December.
The brand is now in 58 countries and celebrating its fifth anniversary in Hong Kong.
Clarke talks to the South China Morning Post about his audacious plan to make 2XU a billion-dollar business within a decade, the future of high-performance sports fabrics and why he likens running this fast-growing brand to being in a “constant state of paranoia”.
How did this brand come about?
When [the founders] met in 2004, we realised nobody was focusing on performance any more. We found that the big brands – the Pumas, Nikes, Adidas – were vacating the space of high performance. They were focusing on stories about DJs and fashion and cool.