‘Plastic anxiety’: Is this the next big shift in activewear?

From organic cotton to cashmere, most modern consumers seek out natural fibres as markers of taste and eco-consciousness. But there’s one category where natural fibres can be hard to come by: activewear.

Byron Bay designer Laura May co-founded Nagnata in 2015 after struggling to find non-synthetic clothes to exercise in.

“There weren’t many brands in the activewear space that worked with any form of organic or natural fibres. There was organic cotton … but it wasn’t really in performance wear – it didn’t offer compression, and stylistically, it just wasn’t really what I wanted to wear,” she says.

Knowing wool has many natural properties – odour resistance, temperature regulation and quick drying – that make it well suited to activewear, May reached out to global wool authority Woolmark for help in developing a seamless merino product that could mimic the stretchy qualities of synthetics.

More than a decade on, Nagnata has become one of Australia’s most popular high-end activewear lines. Yet it remains an outlier in its use of natural fibres.

Before the mainstream adoption of Lycra (or Spandex, both brand names for elastane) in the 1980s by way of leggings and leotards, what people wore to exercise was less defined. In the 1920s, for example, female tennis players favoured loose cotton dresses or separates.

Fast-forward to 2026, and exercise wear – a billion-dollar category in itself – can feel like the last frontier of the fashion industry’s sustainability push, although slowly, brands like Nagnata are leading the change.

Trend forecaster Tully Walter sees growing consumer appetite for “natural” activewear as driven by sustainability concerns as well as “rising plastic and petrochemical anxiety”.

As media headlines around microplastics and documentaries like Netflix’s The Plastic Detox fuel fears around what the tiny particles are doing to our bodies (although the science on the health impacts is still young), consumers are becoming more conscious about what they put inside and outside their bodies.

“What’s interesting about activewear is it’s a marketplace synonymous with health and wellbeing,” says Walter, making the consumer ripe for “plastic-free” options.

Broader trends, like Gen Z’s disdain for the “homogenised aesthetic” of activewear (read: Millennials’ uniform of black leggings) in favour of gear that reflects their personality, like vintage athleisure, may also be at play, says Walter.

Upheavals in the fashion industry may hurry these changes along. Last week, Lycra filed for bankruptcy, citing decreased demand and competition from lower-priced, generic competitors. Meanwhile, The Business of Fashion has reported that the worsening oil shock may raise the cost of synthetic fibres, which, of course, come from fossil fuels.

Dr Nga Wun Li, a fashion and textiles researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, says the biggest advantage of synthetic fibres is their endless adaptability.

“If we want a fabric that’s water-repellent, or rainproof or stretchy, then we can change the shape of the fibre to allow this special function in the fabric,” she says.

While materials like bamboo or cotton have some elasticity, Li says this is often not enough compared to synthetic options.

All the synthetic fibres Nagnata does use are recycled, something May says was hard to come by at the beginning. As a small business with finite resources, sourcing something like recycled nylon (now fairly common) was a waiting game.

“It’s a shame because the companies that can be affording to do this and be innovating in this space – the Nikes, Lululemons – have the money and volume,” she says, explaining a completely synthetic-free yarn is the next benchmark to strive for.

“So, it actually is them that need to make the shift in their supply chain, sourcing and yarn choices because then all the [smaller] brands like ours can tap into that … So that was my pain point from so early on because none of this was accessible to me.”

Slowly, some industry big players are catching on, like Lululemon, which last year announced a partnership with Australian textile company Samsara Eco to increase their use of recycled fibres.

Dr Lisa Lake, director of UTS’ Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles, thinks we’re getting closer to finding a plastic-free alternative to the synthetic fibres favoured for activewear.

Work around biosynthetics, made from raw materials like corn and sugarcane, shows particular promise, she says, although it’s not yet clear when they’ll be commercially viable.

May says Nagnata is in the process of developing a seaweed-based textile.

Sydneysider Ellie Tam started activewear brand Estroni during the pandemic. While she began with a range of synthetic-based bodysuits, last year, Tam pivoted to leggings, sports bras and bike shorts made primarily from merino wool.

“Figures like Dr Rhonda [Patrick, a biomedical scientist popular on social media], and Bryan Johnson [the American venture capitalist best known for his quest for immortality] are drawing light to these things and the issue of microplastics,” she says of the rebranding.

Most consumers today, Tam says, aren’t as conscious about the plastics in their clothing.

“Like, why isn’t anyone thinking about wearing plastic activewear to a sauna when you’re sweating, when your pores are open, or if you’re going to a hot yoga class?”

Tam points out that wool has long been favoured by certain athletes, like hikers and skiers, but is not yet synonymous with athleisure.

For Tam, then, a big part of the brand’s promotion has been around education.

“I used to wear polyester to do hot yoga, and I would think, ‘oh, this is breathable’. But once you wear merino wool, the sweat doesn’t pool against your skin, it is actually absorbed off your skin, and you feel cool. It was a game changer,” she says.

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