Inspired by the idyll of England’s quintessential grass-court tennis season, EXEAT is a luxurious sustainably conscious performance grade athleisure brand. Not only fast becoming a fashion editor’s favourite, it has won cult following from tennis, padel and pickleball players.
Founded by British entrepreneur and tennis enthusiast Laura Ward, the company launched in Summer 2021, and aims to shake up the tennis apparel industry that is dominated by pure play sports brands designing with the athletes they sponsor in mind.
Prior to establishing EXEAT, Laura forged a successful career in advertising and in 2011 launched one of Europe’s first influencer marketing agencies, TLA. Relocating to Paris in 2017, she was new in town and joined a local tennis club with incredibly chic opponents. Wanting to improve her style game on the court, she went shopping for tennis apparel that she assumed existed, like skiing and yoga, but couldn’t find anything.
Upon returning to the UK, Laura began developing the label with no prior fashion manufacturing experience. She says that the key to her success was Covid-19 and Brexit. Covid-19 shut down their supply chain as the factories closed, however during the various lockdowns tennis was the only group sport in the UK people were permitted to play. The LTA reported a 372% surge in tennis participation, bringing the total number of British players in advance of six million.
Heralding a new era for British tennis apparel, the brand started by releasing five signature tennis dresses and various separates in sizes S through to XXL.
The pleats are a true signature of the brand as seen in this dress. They were six months in development alone, with a thermo rendered fold that holds formation during play. They are also fully machine washable.
After three years R&D, the founder insisted that the pioneering fabrics used not only meet the attributes of being sustainable, but that they exceed all current standards, setting a new benchmark for the sector. Using world-leading ecological fabrics across the entire collection, they dramatically minimise carbon emissions, regenerate polluting ocean plastics & divert fabric landfill through recycling.
Brexit also helped the growth of the brand, because in the immediate aftermath it was too expensive and difficult to trade within the EU. Forced to look to America pretty much from launch, the biggest western market in the world for tennis, they discovered shipping state-side was cheaper than to Europe and they could trade ‘tax free’ with e-commerce customers there. As a result, today 80 per cent of revenues come from export.
By Anna Bance
March 2023
Contributing editor, Anna Bance, introduces us to this sustainably conscious performance grade athleisure brand.
By
Anna Bance
·
March 2023
Anna is the co-founder of Girls Meets Dress and a contributing editor to the GWG. She expertly guides us round the most covetable online fashion.
