Modern menswear has developed a fairly unreasonable job description.
Fabletics would like to fill it.
The assortment Ced Hudson walked Men’s Journal through still includes what you would expect from an activewear brand: technical fabrics, running pieces, and clothes designed to survive actual exercise. But it also included washed fleeces, corduroy pants, puffers, quarter-zips, graphics, and accessories—pieces designed less around finishing a 5K than finishing whatever the rest of your day requires.
For Hudson, that evolution is intentional.
“There was an opportunity to continue to push,” he said, “taking our prowess in activewear and our understanding of those materials, and how do we continue to push that into that everyday?”
That thinking is showing up in places like golf. Fabletics says it has more than doubled its golf assortment since 2023, while 2026 polo revenue has already surpassed each of the previous three full years, according to co-founder Don Ressler.
Photo provided by Fabletics
But Ressler sees the appeal in versatility.
“A great golf polo can keep up through a full round and still be your go-to for dinner or a meeting,” Ressler said. “That’s how we think about design at Fabletics: how something looks, how it feels, and how well it performs.”
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Hudson is an interesting designer to help make that jump because his own creative interests have never stayed neatly inside fashion.
He ran track in college, learned garment construction and patternmaking, and grew up around making things. During the pandemic, he helped create the Greensboro Chair, a furniture project inspired by the lunch-counter sit-ins. He has also worked on album art and hosted a jazz radio show.
“I’m a real good storyteller and dot connector too,” Hudson said. “I kind of see the unseen.”
That range mirrors what Fabletics is trying to do with the brand itself.
Hudson describes the men’s business as a collection of different worlds—training, running, golf, swim, and lifestyle—and increasingly, the boundaries between them matter less. You can see that in who Fabletics is building around: Kevin Hart’s recent golf collection pushes the brand deeper into sport-as-lifestyle, while Ja’Marr Chase’s line leans into a younger, more fashion-forward version of performance wear.
Photography provided by Fabletics
The clothes still have to perform. But they also have to look like something a guy actually wants to keep wearing.
As Hudson put it later, “Everybody wants to feel cool and feel comfortable and just be confident.”
And that may be the bigger swing (pun intended) that the brand is taking.
Fabletics doesn’t necessarily need men to buy more gym clothes. It needs them to stop thinking of those clothes as belonging only to the gym.
