Under Armour’s latest product innovation, Neolast, was seven years in the making.
In 2017, the company’s innovation team started developing a material they hoped would be an improvement on spandex, with similar or greater stretch and strength but without spandex’s main flaw: its moisture retention. Kyle Blakely, Under Armour’s svp of innovation, development and testing, said the company sourced the central polymer material from chemical company DuPont, which also invented spandex. That material was then iterated by Under Armour’s innovation team over the last five years until it became Neolast.
Under Armour’s first product made with Neolast — a collection of T-shirts within its training-focused Vanish activewear line — hit its e-commerce site and store shelves on Monday, May 13. The material will be introduced in more categories next year. Neolast products will be priced similarly to their spandex counterparts, with the shirts selling for $40. Under Armour plans to reduce the number of spandex products it sells by 75% by 2030.
“When we develop something new, it involves the ingredients of the material, the design, the development and testing which happens all over the world,” Blakely said. “We own the whole problem.”
Blakely said the marketing team was brought in early to plan for Neolast’s rollout, especially as a brand goal is communicating its products’ stories in a clearer, more educational way. Moisture retention is a well-known issue with spandex among athletes, so the campaigns around Neolast will focus on the technical advantages of the material over spandex.
“We’ll explain to the customer what it is, why it works and why you need it,” Blakely said.
According to John Hardy III, senior director of product development at Under Armour, the company will have exclusive use of Neolast for at least a year before opening access to the material to other brands as an additional revenue source. Under Armour has allowed other innovations to be used by other brands in the past, like its fiber shedding technology unveiled last year.
“When it comes to innovation, the biggest challenge for us is deciding when to tweak an existing product versus make something entirely new,” Hardy said. “This is one of the biggest innovations in stretch fibers since the invention of spandex.”
Hardy said the company puts a lot of investment in research and development and he hopes the results will be a brand differentiator. Under Armour has poured millions of dollars into research partnerships with organizations like North Carolina State University to develop new materials. Those materials are then wear-tested by athletes from Under Armour’s many sponsored teams, like the University of Maryland football team in Under Armour’s home state.
Under Armour’s annual revenue approached $6 billion last year, making it smaller than many of its competitors like Nike (over $50 billion), Adidas ($23 billion) and Puma ($9 billion). And competition among high-performance activewear brands is heating up. Young brands like On Running and Hoka have taken market share from established giants like Nike and Under Armour thanks to their own technological innovations in high-performance active gear. On’s CloudTec cushioning technology has been praised by professional runners. Meanwhile, Nike CEO John Donahoe said in March that the company would be leaning harder on product innovation to enliven its flagging sales.
In February during Under Armour’s third-quarter earnings call, former CEO Stephanie Linnartz touted the upcoming launch of Neolast as a major moment for the brand and a chance for it to keep up with its competitors.
“With the first apparel products due out later this year, we believe Neolast fiber could have a transformative impact on Under Armour and the textile industry,” she said.
