Danskin Women's Fashion Brand

The Danskin brand has proudly been synonymous with femininity since 1882 - a date that makes this one of the oldest names in this directory. It started out as a family owned business that catered to New York City's dancers, selling tights, tutus and leotards, and Danskin soon became the standard for dancers across the USA. Apparel Search's Danskin company profile, linked from this page, carries the corporate record in full; this profile follows the brand from the dance studio outward.

Today, the profile continued, Danskin enjoys status as the ultimate female active brand, both nationally and internationally. The label has evolved with women's lifestyles for over 125 years to create the best in fashionable, functional dancewear, active wear and casual clothes, as well as fitness equipment including weights, toning balls and yoga mats - dedicated, in its own words, to meeting the changing fashion wants and performance needs of active women and girls, across fitness, yoga, dance, gymnastics and casual wear.

From Triumph Apparel to Iconix: The Ownership Record

New York City-based Triumph Apparel Corporation, formerly Danskin Inc., is a diversified activewear company and the official licensee, manufacturer and distributor of a complete line of Danskin women's and girls exercise, dance, cheer, yoga and lifestyle apparel and fitness equipment. That licence exists because of a sale: Danskin sold its Danskin intellectual property to Iconix Brand Group, Inc. in March 2007, and entered into a license agreement with Iconix to continue operating the Danskin wholesale business, including its freestanding retail stores and its internet merchant site, Danskin.com.

Effective August 2, 2007, Danskin Inc. changed its name to Triumph Apparel Corporation - the name change required as part of the sale, restoring a name that had been the brand's corporate moniker earlier in its 125-year history. Distribution at that time ran through better department and sporting goods stores nationwide, more than 2,500 dance shops in the US, Canada and overseas, its own freestanding Danskin boutiques and Danskin.com. The two photographs in this page's gallery are from the brand's 2017 campaign fronted by Jenna Dewan Tatum, whose Apparel Search blog coverage is linked here as the Jenna Dewan Tatum for Danskin 2017 campaign story, alongside our fitness fashion guide.

Buying Dancewear and Activewear Well

Dancewear is fit-critical clothing, and Danskin's own standard - performance fabrics and precise cutting specifications - tells a shopper what to test. Leotards should be tried in movement: plié, stretch and reach in the fitting room, checking that straps stay, leg lines stay, and fabric recovers rather than bagging. Tights should be smooth without ladders-in-waiting at toe and waist, and sized generously rather than barely, because a tight pulled to its limit fails sooner than one worn at ease.

Activewear and fitness pieces follow the same discipline: waistbands that survive a workout without adjustment, fabrics opaque under stretch, and equipment - weights, toning balls and yoga mats - chosen by the exercise actually planned, not the exercise imagined. Care keeps performance fabrics performing: wash cool, skip heavy softeners that coat technical fibres, and air-dry leotards and tights rather than tumble-drying their stretch away. From an 1882 family business serving New York dancers to the ultimate female active brand, Danskin's promise is consistency - buy to that standard and the kit earns its place.

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