Why nearly 2,000 people lined up to get a pair of Athleta tights

Would you take a brand new pair of free tights in exchange for your old ones? Well, we know we would, and so did the thousands of customers who lined up across activewear brand Athleta’s in-store trade-in activations in NYC, Miami, Dallas, DC, and Chicago earlier this month.

The idea for this “one day only” event was simple: bring in any pair of leggings from any brand and take home a complimentary new pair of Athleta’s Salutation Stash Tights.

That seemed to have struck a chord with consumers, who numbered close to 2,000 in New York, according to Shannon Damen, Athleta’s head of commerce and experience.

“This is really our best tight…as you think about our desire to make sure that we’re broadening the aperture with consumers that they’re aware of this particular product at different points in time,” Damen told Retail Brew. “We wanted to be able to engage with consumers and just get their thoughts in line and understand…qualitatively what they’re interested in and how they’re engaging.”

At the moment, the traded in tights are being recycled or resold through Athleta’s circularity partner, ThredUp, after which all resale profits will be donated to a women’s sports foundation.

The brand said in a press release the donation amount is likely to be upwards of 2,700 pairs from a mix of longstanding and new customers the retailer was able to attract through the activation.

“We have two core customers: One is really a person where movement is at the center of everything she does from a psychographic perspective, and another is where movement is a big part of what she does, but she likes to do it outdoors,” Damen said. “We are a B Corp, so we’re super committed [to sustainability]…It’s becoming increasingly important, particularly amongst younger consumers and people who really resonate with being outdoors—generally the idea of being able to upcycle or recycle.”

Although the event ended up being for just a single day, don’t be fooled; it has been in the works since early last fall, and Damen said the retailer has done a significant amount of “consumer work” and also timed it for maximum impact.

“We wanted to make sure with January being such a tremendous focus on fitness across the macro environment, we felt like that would be best placed there,” she said.

But despite the success of the event, Damen said the retailer—which also runs a secondhand program called Preloved in partnership with ThredUp—is happy with its current resale initiatives, and it’s not necessarily a “strategic focus” for the brand.

“We definitely want to double down and expand these,” she said. “It will just be wherever we feel like we have a superior product, and we want to make sure that consumers are experiencing that. We’ll continue to build out programs around that, and we’re in the process of assessing market timing.”