Fitigues, an athleisure-inspired upscale casual brand, is back in the hands of its founders after a ruinous period under corporate ownership.
“Having Fitigues again, and being able to take a different run at it — it’s just surreal,” said Steve Rosenstein, who with his wife Andi launched Fitigues in Chicago in 1988 as casual gym-inspired apparel brand when athleisure was just emerging. They grew it to $30 million in sales with 30 stores while wholesaling to Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and other department stores.
Chico’s bought the brand in 2006, but clashed with management over strategy. The founders watched as Fitigues hemorrhaged down to nothing — and then decided to buy the brand back in April last year.
It’s a classic tale of entrepreneurial grit.
Steve met Andi while he was a salesperson in Chicago for Trim Surf Wear. “About a year into it, Andi strolled into my office in the Chicago apparel center with her résumé. I didn’t have anything for her at the time, but as fate would have it, my designer in L.A. called me and said ‘we’re starting a bikini division. Do the hiring, the training and managing,’ and I said, ‘I already met the girl that can do this job.’ I called Andy and we started working as co-sales reps out of my office.”
While working, hitting happy hours and the gym, they needed a break in the routine and launched Fitigues for men and women. “It was like a gym chic concept, not really what you’d wear to the gym, but inspired by the old brands we knocked around in, in college, like Champion,” Steve said. “Andi put a cool twist on all of it.” Fitigues is a play on the word ‘fatigues’ to suggest an easy, worn-in or vintage look but with the ‘fit’ portion of the name evoking fitness.”
Steve and Andi Rosenstein
The Rosensteins brought Fitigues to market in 1988, generated $1 million in sales the first year, including by selling to Bergdorf Goodman, an early account. “Once you sell Bergdorf’s, you’re off to the races,” Steve said.
When Neiman Marcus picked up the collection, the buyer told the Rosensteins about a new department called ‘athleisure’ that could include Fitigues. “I said that’s a terrible name for a department,” Steve said. “I still feel that way because it always makes me think of my dad wearing a Seventies leisure suit. But that’s what they called it, and now it’s a multibillion-dollar industry and everybody’s into it.”
The Rosensteins began opening Fitigues stores after seeing how the collection was haphazardly presented in department stores, with some exceptions. “Bergdorf’s was the best of them,” Steve said.
Their first store opened in a former warehouse off a pier on the Chicago River, next to the Baja Beach Club, which had long lines of people outside that stretched in front of the Fitigues store. “We stayed open till two in the morning,” Steve recalled. “It was a crazy store from the start. We had Oprah Winfrey showing up,” requiring the Rosensteins to shut down the store so she could shop alone. “We didn’t really know what we were doing, but we got hooked on retail.”
By 1998, they had 30 stores in 20 states, on upscale streets and in open-air centers like Mizner Park in Boca Raton, Fla., the Borgata of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Highland Park Village in Dallas. They also had a store inside Fred Segal in Los Angeles.
In 2001, after the Rosensteins relocated to Scottsdale for a change in weather and scenery, Chico’s approached them to buy Fitigues. The Rosensteins rejected the offer, but a few years later they ran into the Chico’s CEO at a private equity conference who pitched them a strategic partnership to jumpstart an expansion of Fitigues. The Rosensteins made the deal for an undisclosed amount.
“The first call I got was from Mickey Drexler,” Steve recalled. Drexler, running Gap Inc. at that point, said, “‘Congratulations. That’s a great thing after 20 years of hard work, but you guys aren’t going to last a year with these people. You and Andi are entrepreneurs. You’re not gonna survive.’
“We were happy with the deal and thought we’d have a long run with Chico’s because we had a few dozen stores, and their plan was for 250 more locations,” Steve said. “We’re all about growth, fun, excitement and building things.”
The first potential new location Steve brought to Chico’s was at the Malibu Country Mart in California. Within a couple of days, as Steve tells it, Chico’s responded — not interested. The space is too small.
“Our average store was 1,500 to 2,000 square feet,” Steve said. “They were looking for sites at 3,000 to 3,500 square feet,” to practically double the merchandising. “From that point on, which was literally a month into selling Fitigues, we realized there was absolutely no way it was going to be a good, long-term relationship.”
The situation became only more complicated when Chico’s wanted Fitigues to expand into malls along with the corporation’s stable of brands, which included Chico’s, White House, Black Market and Somo. “We did not share the same customer. I got a sick feeling in my stomach,” Steve said. “It became a mundane, day-to-day, awful experience.”
Further complicating matters was that Chico’s, once a retail darling of Wall Street, began to lose momentum, and interest in growing Fitigues waned as they focused on the core brands. The Rosensteins left Chico’s in 2008, signed a non-compete requiring them to stay out of fashion for a year, and Chico’s discontinued Fitigues.
The Rosensteins went back into business by converting a 1925 former produce warehouse in downtown Phoenix into “The Duce,” a 15,000-square-foot venue blending retail, boxing and entertainment used for weddings, bar mitzvahs and corporate events. The Duce opened in 2010 and continues to be operated by the Rosensteins’ son.
But the Rosensteins missed the apparel business. So they created a line called R&R Surplus, mixing nostalgic Americana sportswear with army-navy looks including military parkas, army boots, old Champion sweatshirts and P.F. Flyers.
One day, two buyers from Nordstrom, which once carried Fitigues, entered The Duce. Steve served them drinks and the next day he got a call from Laura Janney, then head of women’s at Nordstrom. She implored the Rosensteins to buy back the Fitigues name from Chico’s and convert R&R to Fitiques. Nordstrom wanted the line again.
In April 2025, the Rosensteins bought back Fitigues from Chico’s, which was acquired by Sycamore Partners in 2024, for less than they sold it to Chico’s for, according to Steve.
The Scottsdale-based Fitigues currently operates two shops, in the DC Ranch community in North Scottsdale, and the Fashion Island shopping center in Newport Beach, Calif. They also have an e-commerce website as well as knitting, dyeing and cut-and-sewn operations in Los Angeles. They said the 800-square-foot, year-old Fashion Island shop is tracking at about $650 per square foot. The 1,500-square-foot Scottsdale store, opened December 2025, logs about twice the volume of the Fashion Island shop. The Rosensteins are focusing on growing the business online by targeting zip codes where years ago Fitigues had stores, such as in Boca Raton, Fla.
The Fitigues store in North Scottsdale, Ariz.
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Nowadays, “Fitigues is very similar to the way it was,” Andi said. “If anything, it’s more high end than before. We work with most of the same fabrics, but they’re more beautiful than ever. Thermal is still our number-one fabric. Reverse fleece, which we started with in 1989, is right up there. We don’t do kids now, but we will. We’ve been getting requests for it.
“Obviously, athleisure is a very crowded field,” Andi added. “There’s so much out there, but it’s very different than Fitigues. Our product looks nothing like the Lululemons and the Alo Yogas out there. They’re both very fitness-oriented.” Jackets, hoodies, T-shirts, shorts, cargo pants, dusters, blazer and dresses, as well as vintage looks are offered, generally in $130 to $300 range.
“Nobody buys Fitigues to wear to the gym and then walk around town all day.” She said Fitigues has a “chic, athletic-inspired aura” stemming from its fabrics. “I would say we’re more similar to a James Pearce than a real athleisure brand.”
