Nation divided: One half of athleisure label P.E Nation steps down

Just days after staging the biggest runway of its eight-year history and achieving a world-recognised sustainability benchmark, one of the co-founders of athleisure brand P.E Nation has announced she is leaving the company.

Claire Greaves (formerly Tregoning) confirmed via a statement on Thursday that she is stepping down from her day-to-day role at the brand, which she founded 10 years ago with friend Pip Edwards. Edwards will continue as creative director of the business, which is majority owned by Sydney-based Hotsprings.

P.E Nation co-founders Pip Edwards (left) and Claire Greaves in 2022.Credit: Steven Siewert

“Claire Greaves has made the decision to step out of the day-to-day running of the business,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement. “Claire will remain on the board and will retain her shareholding as the company continues to thrive in the very creative, visionary hands of Pip Edwards.”

The statement confirmed months of rumours that Greaves had left the business, with reports that during a long leave of absence last year, her office at P.E Nation’s headquarters in Sydney’s Alexandria had been reassigned for other purposes. At the time, it was understood Greaves had taken leave for personal reasons and was spending time in Byron Bay, where she is behind Sun Ranch, a luxury guesthouse in a refurbished 1980s home just outside the tourist town.

Greaves and Edwards were unavailable for comment.

On Saturday, P.E Nation staged the Grand Showcase at the Melbourne Fashion Festival, the only solo featured runway of the six-night program. Greaves was not present at the show and had not appeared in any of the promotional material in the lead-up to the festival.

Pip Edwards takes her bow at the end of the P.E Nation Grand Showcase at the Melbourne Fashion Festival on Saturday.Credit: Getty Images

On Thursday, Edwards posted on her personal Instagram about P.E Nation achieving B Corp status, a global benchmark for sustainability. “The road to B Corp certification has been a full business, all staff, enormous initiative over the past 2 years, and I couldn’t be more proud,” she wrote. Her post did not acknowledge Greaves.

After working together at Australian label sass & bide, Edwards and Greaves launched P.E Nation in 2016 to disrupt the burgeoning – and booming – activewear space with designs that leant heavily into 1980s streetwear. Their disruption of the category, as well as runaway success in the early years with stockists including Selfridges and David Jones, helped earn the brand the Melbourne Fashion Festival’s National Designer Award in 2018.

Before this year’s festival, Edwards told this masthead that the Grand Showcase would be a platform to reposition the brand in a more fashion-forward vein, as the activewear space became ever more crowded.

A promised “reposition” of P.E Nation seemed to be lacking in the runway show.Credit: Getty Images

“We’re ready to disrupt the market again in a way that hasn’t been done before,” she said in December.

But Saturday’s runway didn’t reveal much in the way of newness for the brand, leading show-goers to question whether there had been a production issue, or another change. P.E Nation has been contacted for comment.

This week, the brand was included on the schedule of Australian Fashion Week, where it is expected Edwards will show P.E Nation’s resort range. The show is set for May 14 at Carriageworks in Sydney.

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