Lululemon Leggings Sales Are Falling — Are Seamless Leggings Still a Good Market in 2026?

For more than a decade, leggings have been one of the defining products of the global activewear boom.

They moved from yoga studios into gyms, airports, offices, coffee shops, and everyday wardrobes. Brands such as Lululemon helped turn technical stretch pants into a mainstream fashion category—and created a large market for manufacturers producing yoga leggings, compression wear, and seamless activewear.

But in 2026, the market is sending mixed signals.

According to Lululemon's second-quarter fiscal 2026 results, quarterly revenue fell 4% year over year to $2.4 billion. Revenue in the Americas declined 8%, while comparable sales dropped 9%.

The weakness was especially visible in one of the brand's most important categories.

Reuters reported that Lululemon's leggings sales fell about 20% in the second quarter of 2026, as the company dealt with changing consumer tastes, stronger competition and product challenges.

That immediately raises a much bigger question for activewear manufacturers:

Are leggings dying—and if so, is seamless activewear still a market worth entering?

The answer is more complicated than simply yes or no.

What appears to be weakening is the dominance of the traditional premium, skin-tight legging as an all-purpose fashion item.

That is not the same thing as saying consumers are abandoning activewear, performance bottoms or seamless garments altogether.

In fact, market data suggests that the broader opportunity remains substantial.

What Is Actually Happening to the Leggings Market?

Lululemon's 20% decline should not be interpreted in isolation.

The company is facing several issues at the same time.

Reuters noted that Lululemon has been dealing with tougher competition from brands such as Alo Yoga and Vuori, alongside product innovation and fit challenges. Its Get Low leggings, for example, were temporarily pulled after product complaints.

At the same time, fashion preferences are changing.

Consumers who previously used tight leggings for almost every casual occasion increasingly have alternatives such as:

• wide-leg active pants;

• relaxed joggers;

• flare yoga pants;

• straight-leg performance pants;

• loose technical trousers;

• lifestyle-oriented athleisure bottoms.

This means leggings now face more competition outside the gym.

A shopper who once wore black leggings for commuting, shopping, travelling, working from home and exercising may now choose loose trousers for several of those situations.

But that does not mean fitted garments have lost their purpose.

For yoga, Pilates, running, gym training and other movement-focused activities, close-fitting apparel still provides practical benefits such as unrestricted movement, compression, body visibility and reduced fabric interference.

So the market is not simply moving from:

leggings → no leggings

It is moving toward:

basic leggings → more specialized and differentiated activewear.

The Wider Yoga Clothing Market Is Still Growing

This distinction becomes clearer when looking at the wider market.

According to Grand View Research's 2026 yoga clothing market report, the global yoga clothing market is estimated at $56.6 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $92.8 billion by 2033, representing a CAGR of approximately 7.3%.

Bottom wear also remains the largest product segment.

Grand View Research reports that bottom wear accounted for 54.1% of yoga clothing revenue in 2025, covering products such as leggings, pants, shorts and capris.

Basic apparel categories have not disappeared either. Leggings, T-shirts, tank tops and shorts remain widely purchased, especially among consumers looking for practical workout clothing.

Another interesting signal comes from price positioning.

The mid-range yoga clothing segment is projected to grow at an 8.8% CAGR from 2026 to 2033, faster than the overall yoga clothing market.

That matters because it suggests growth is not limited to ultra-premium brands.

There is still significant demand for products combining reasonable prices with better design, comfort, durability and performance.

Sportswear Demand Is Also Larger Than Leggings Alone

The wider sportswear market provides another reason not to interpret Lululemon's leggings decline too broadly.

According to Euromonitor International's 2026 sportswear research, more than one in five apparel and footwear products sold worldwide in 2025 was a sportswear item.

Euromonitor expects global sportswear sales to exceed $500 billion by 2030, with the market expanding at close to 5% annually between 2025 and 2030—faster than the wider apparel and footwear industry.

The organization also points to a shift toward what it calls more “investment-grade” sportswear: products where buyers pay more attention to performance, durability and lifestyle value.

This is important for manufacturers.

If consumers become more selective, they may buy fewer ordinary products—but demand more from the products they do buy.

That environment can actually favor more technically differentiated seamless garments.

The Real Problem Is Basic Leggings, Not the Entire Category

A plain pair of black, high-waisted stretch leggings is now one of the easiest activewear products for consumers to find.

Thousands of brands offer similar silhouettes.

That creates a difficult market for suppliers competing only through:

• lower prices;

• more colors;

• slightly different fabric weights;

• logo changes;

• minor waistband adjustments.

The category is therefore becoming less about simply manufacturing leggings and more about engineering a reason for consumers to choose one pair over another.

This is where seamless technology becomes much more relevant.

What Does the Market Shift Mean for Seamless Activewear?

The market data does not suggest that consumers are abandoning activewear. Instead, it suggests that the category is becoming more selective.

A basic pair of high-waisted black leggings now competes with thousands of similar products as well as flare pants, joggers, wide-leg active trousers and other athleisure styles. This makes it increasingly difficult for brands to compete simply by offering another conventional skin-tight silhouette.

At the same time, fitted activewear still has clear applications in yoga, Pilates, running, gym training and other activities where stretch, freedom of movement and close-to-body fit remain useful.

That creates a different type of opportunity.

Rather than relying on one universal leggings design, brands are increasingly likely to look for products differentiated by factors such as:

• fit and comfort;

• fabric structure;

• stretch and support;

• ventilation;

• texture and visual design;

• waistband construction;

• application-specific performance.

The same shift can also encourage brands to broaden their collections beyond full-length leggings.

Biker shorts, fitted training tops, jumpsuits, yoga wear and coordinated seamless sets can address similar consumers while reducing dependence on a single product silhouette.

This is why falling sales of one traditional leggings category should not automatically be interpreted as falling demand for seamless activewear as a whole.

The more important change is that product development is becoming more important than simply adding production volume.

For manufacturers, that means the commercial question is gradually changing from:

“Can we produce leggings?”

to:

“Can we produce the types of fitted and seamless activewear that brands are now looking for?”

What Does This Mean for Choosing Seamless Knitting Manufacturers?

This shift in demand also has implications further upstream in apparel production.

If activewear brands want to develop more varied fitted garments, manufacturers need production equipment that can support different garment sizes, structures and applications rather than relying on a single basic leggings style.

One production route is the use of a seamless underwear knitting machine.

Despite the name, this type of machine is not limited to conventional underwear. WELLKNIT, for example, lists running tights, jumpsuits, yoga wear, swimming suits and sanitary wear among the applications of its seamless knitting equipment.

This is relevant to the current market because several of those products sit directly within the same broader activewear and fitted-apparel category discussed above.

For example, some seamless underwear knitting machines are offered in cylinder sizes from 8 inches for baby garments to 12–17 inches for adult products, with gauges ranging from 16G to 40G. The manufacturer states that its operating speed is generally 100–120 RPM depending on material, design and diameter.

Those specifications do not determine whether a particular activewear product will succeed in the market. Product design, yarn selection, finishing, pricing and brand positioning remain equally important.

However, they illustrate why seamless machinery is relevant when manufacturers want to serve more than one fitted-apparel category.

A factory looking at the 2026 market therefore does not necessarily need to make a binary decision between “leggings” and “no leggings.”

A more practical approach may be to consider a broader production portfolio that includes products such as running tights, yoga garments, jumpsuits and other seamless apparel, depending on the target customer and market.

Are Seamless Leggings Still a Good Market in 2026?

Lululemon's recent leggings decline is an important signal, but it should not be interpreted as evidence that the entire seamless activewear market is shrinking.

What it shows more clearly is that consumer preferences are changing and that conventional leggings face stronger competition than they did several years ago.

At the same time, broader yoga clothing and sportswear data still point to continued market growth.

For manufacturers, the opportunity is therefore becoming more product-specific.

Producing another basic pair of tight black leggings may be increasingly difficult to differentiate. Developing fitted activewear around specific activities, different silhouettes and broader seamless product ranges may offer more room for brands and suppliers to compete.

In that context, the role of a seamless knitting machine is relatively straightforward:

it is not a guarantee that a particular product will sell, but it is one of the production tools manufacturers can use to respond to demand for running tights, yoga wear, jumpsuits and other seamless garments.

That may ultimately be the more useful lesson from Lululemon's 2026 performance.

The question is no longer simply:

“Are leggings still popular?”

It is:

“Which seamless activewear products are consumers likely to want next—and can manufacturers adapt their production accordingly?”