Under Armour Women's Fashion Brand

Under Armour is the performance-apparel brand in this letter, and the original profile opens with its product list: athletic shoes, t-shirts, jackets, hoodies, pants, leggings, shorts and accessories such as bags, gloves, caps and protective gear. The company also produces American football, basketball and soccer uniforms, among other sports. For a women's shopper, that list is the range map - training and fitness apparel first, team uniforms behind it - and the original filed the page under fitness fashion for exactly that reason.

The brand promotes its products through sponsorship agreements with many celebrity athletes, professional teams and college athletic teams, a field in which it competes with other sports apparel companies, per the original. That sponsorship model explains the brand's visibility in women's sport: the same performance line sold to individual athletes is the line placed on sponsored teams, so the women's range a shopper finds in a store is the retail face of a team-and-athlete business.

A Better T-Shirt: The 1996 Founding Idea

It started with a simple plan to make a superior T-shirt, per the original: a shirt that provided compression and wicked perspiration off the skin rather than absorbing it, and that worked with the body to regulate temperature and enhance performance. Founded in 1996 by former University of Maryland football player Kevin Plank, Under Armour is described by the original as the originator of performance apparel - gear engineered to keep athletes cool, dry and light throughout a game, practice or workout. The founder's own playing background is part of the record: the first product answered a football player's problem with sweat-soaked cotton under a uniform.

The technology system that grew from that shirt is stated on the original as a simple wearing rule: wear HeatGear when it is hot, ColdGear when it is cold, and AllSeasonGear between the extremes. Behind that rule sits a diverse product assortment for men, women and youth. For women's buying, the practical reading is to shop by condition first - heat, cold or in-between - and by garment second, because the brand itself organises its technology that way. The original also carried the company's mission in its own terms: to make all athletes better through passion, design and the relentless pursuit of innovation.

Researching the Women's Line

The original pointed women's readers to the brand's own women's pages to learn more about Under Armour clothing and footwear, and that official link is carried in this page's References. On Apparel Search itself, the profile's own links - the company's news, profile, jobs and financial pages, its definition entry, and the fitness fashion guide - are all carried here as well, so a researcher can move from this brand summary to the company's record, its hiring pages and its stock coverage without leaving the directory. The original's closing line kept the page's tone: whatever fitness apparel you are wearing is in style.

Set beside this letter's other profile, Under Armour is U's engineered half: where UGG built a footwear name on sheepskin and a trademark fight, Under Armour built an apparel name on a moisture-wicking shirt and a three-part temperature system. Both records are preserved here exactly as the originals stated them - founding year, founder, product lists and all - with no later claims added.

Photos From Our Original Guide