PE Nation founders Pip Edwards and Claire Tregoning open Sydney store

With activewear now ubiquitous thanks to multiple lockdowns and working from home, PE Nation is meeting the demand with the opening of its first store.

PE Nation founders Pip Edwards and Claire Tregoning inside their newly opened flagship store at The Galleries in Sydney. Photo: Nick Cubbin

Back in early 2019 when WISH interviewed PE Nation founders Pip Edwards and Claire Tregoning about their burgeoning activewear brand, Edwards said Australia was leading the way on women wearing leggings and sports tops outside the gym. “The rest of the world is still getting their heads around wearing activewear during the day,” she said at the time.

Three years and a global pandemic later, and almost everyone around the world has most definitely got their heads around wearing activewear during the day. Multiple lockdowns, working from home and the consequent flexible work revolution means we are all in sportswear a lot more.

This has meant demand for the design-led brand has continued to increase, with PE Nation now having 313 stockists around the world (90 alone in Australia) and a staff of 60, and recently opening an office in LA with eyes on international expansion. They have also reached a significant and slightly counterintuitive milestone – given the impact COVID has had on retail – by opening their first store.

“People want to experience human connection, and want to be back out in the world discovering and rediscovering brands and retailers that they have only been able to shop for online in the past few years,” Tregoning tells WISH. “We do have a lot of depth and a number of collections to our brand, and our store offers things that can get missed by retailers,” adds Edwards. “To be able to have all our categories – men and women – under the same roof, to have it all represented, is amazing.”

PE Nation’s flagship store is smack bang in the heart of Sydney, on George Street, opposite the Queen Victoria Building and on the corner of The Galeries shopping centre. The 200sq m space has taken over two previous stores, and is opposite the constantly busy cafe The Grounds of The City and just a light rail ride from Circular Quay in one direction and Chinatown in the other.

“To be fully transparent, it was never something that was really on the agenda,” Edwards says about a physical store. “We had such an amazing retail distribution and we had great partners, and they have really helped foster the brand to the growth we have today. But we always said if the right location and the right space presented itself we would consider it, and so this one was a no brainer.”

The pair were approached last year by Vicinity, which runs The Galeries, and they turned around the design and construction is just over six months. They enlisted architect and friend Kelvin Ho and his practice Akin Atelier to help them come up with a concept for their flagship store.

“Kelvin is actually a really good friend of ours, and so is his wife,” explains Edwards. “When we started PE Nation in 2016, just three months into it we opened a pop-up store at Bondi Junction, which was a bit crazy because it was such early days, and Kelvin designed that space for us. He has been part of the brand since day one and so it was amazing we could work together on this project.”

Coming up with what they wanted PE Nation to look like as a physical retail space meant Edwards and Tregoning had to go back to the basics of the brand they founded in 2016. The friends, who met working at Australian fashion label Sass & Bide, started PE Nation as they were looking for more fashion-forward workout clothing they could wear outside the gym in their lives as working mothers.

“We had to really question what our brand pillars were, what we stand for, and we had to work that out,” Edwards explains. “We are a coastal brand, we are an outdoor brand, we are of the landscape but we are also urban. It was trying to tie those urban and coastal elements together.”

They achieved that in the flagship store by having ombre sandstone walls referencing Australian sandstone and the warmth of the landscape outside the change rooms. The main store area was more about urban life, according to Edwards, all about bright city lights, motion, living at a fast pace. This was achieved by a light installation feature by New Zealand artist Trish Campbell, and the use of LED television screens.

“I like to think of our brand as a dynamic amoeba; we flex and move with culture and lifestyle and what is going on,” Edwards tells WISH. “A retail store can become static, so the LED screens allowed for our content to really come to life, show the richness of the brand and the energetic and dynamic vibrancy we have.”

All the clothing rails are on a winch that can lever up into the ceiling, which allows the store to be flexible and a space for a more physical experience, whether it be a Pilates class or a really good party (as was held in June to celebrate the opening). “The big thing for our brand is how you feel and the energy you project, and that means you have to allow for movement,” Edwards says.

The initial reaction has been fabulous, according to Tregoning, with customers enjoying being able to touch and feel all the collections from PE Nation, instead of just a sample on display at another retailer or online. “The other great thing we have is our customer service, and that touchpoint and experience is really at the forefront of our company too,” adds Edwards.

As to the secret of their incredible success in just six years, both women credit the fact they actually live their brand. It is not a concept or a strategy devised in a meeting room, it is clothing that Tregoning and Edwards wear in their own lives, juggling families and work and also having fun.

“We are real women and we have done it; Claire and I have lived it,” Edwards says. “Yes we are from the fashion world, but at the end of the day we are working mums and we juggle and we struggle. It has been challenging but it has also been exciting. We are not scared to own that or talk about that. I think that is why we appeal to a cross-section of women around the world, because they feel that too.”