Nike's Women's Movement

That's why Nike designers and researchers have spent time scouring trendy workout spots like London's the Third Space to pick up on new fitness trends that it calls the "21st-century gym." And some of the company's designs don't involve workout gear at all. Apparel designer Amy Klee pulls on a black trench coat piped with silver. As she zips it up and starts modeling, Klee says, "I kept thinking about women schlepping around a city like New York. They needed something that would survive rainstorms but that would also look great at a place like the Equinox gym. I thought, Why shouldn't we have everyday clothes that perform as well as our workout gear?"

Using the breathable, waterproof fabric that makes up Nike's workout gear, Klee cut a classic above-the-knee trench and added a two-way zipper. "So if you want more room around the hips, you can get it," she says, showing off how. The sleeves and seams are trimmed with reflective material that's usually found on running shoes. "It looks great," Klee says, "but you'll also be seen as you cross a dark street."

That's the beauty of focusing on the in-between. "Fashion is fleeting," says Mindy Grossman, Nike's VP of global apparel. "We have to be enduring. We have to be Nike performance married to style."

How to Talk to Women

Two years ago, Jackie Thomas, Nike's U.S. brand marketing director for women, first heard the phrase "Nike goddess," and it made her cringe. "I don't like talking to women through gender," she says. "Marketers spend too much time reminding women that they're women."

Of course, for much of its history, Nike either treated women like men or didn't think much about them at all. Sometimes, though, Nike got the voice right. Back in 1995, the company ran a campaign titled "If You Let Me Play" that struck a nerve with most women, including Thomas, who had grown up "believing I could do anything boys could do." (Thomas played college basketball and then started her own personal-training gym for women, among them professional basketball players.) The campaign featured female athletes talking about how sports could change women's lives, from reducing teen pregnancy to increasing their chances of getting a college education.

Nike Goddess had to strike a similar chord with women, and it was Thomas's job to make that happen. Nike Goddess had to be more personal than Nike's traditional ads, Thomas decided, so her team created the company's first "magalog" (a cross between a magazine and a catalog) to roll out the name. On the cover, Thomas put a photograph of Marion Jones. But instead of showing Jones competing, she chose a simple shot of Jones's feet against green grass. Inside, articles such as "Ready in a Flash" offered beauty tips for gym rats, and stories such as "Realistic Solutions" aimed to inspire women to get back on track with their commitments.

The approach didn't work. "We had swung the pendulum too far from Nike's core image," Thomas says, "because we thought that power was a weakness when it came to women."

So what did women want? "Women love that Nike is aggressive, that it's competitive," says Thomas. The difference between women and men is that women don't treat athletes like heroes. "No woman thinks that she'll be able to run like Marion Jones because she wears shoes that are named after her," says Janelle Fischer, the women's marketing manager for Nike.

So Thomas had to find a new way to talk to women about athletes. One solution: Don't just dwell on superstars. "We'd always defaulted to the dominant athlete," says Trames. "We needed to listen to women when they said, 'I'm not a runner; I just run.' "

Fast-forward to the sixth issue of the NikeGoddess magalog, which was published this past May. On the cover is a young Asian woman with short, dyed blonde hair. She is sticking out her tongue to show what looks like a piercing. Actually, it's two little Nike shoes. The soft fashion-magazine articles are gone, replaced with "remedies for spring fever" and a small feature on a woman who surfs off the coast of Brooklyn. "This is no longer about 'If You Let Me Play,' " says Thomas. "Women don't need anybody's permission. We are at our best when we are showing women a place where they didn't think they could be."

Fara Warner (fwarner@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer based in San Francisco. Visit Nike Goddess (www.nikegoddess.com) on the Web.