The activewear brand Set Active has made its Austin pop-up permanent, opening a full-time store at 1318 South Congress Avenue that becomes the Los Angeles company's fourth brick-and-mortar location. The storefront joins existing shops in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, and it arrives loaded with Western-inspired design touches meant to root the national brand in its new Texas home.
From Pop-Up to Permanent Fixture
Set Active had tested the South Congress address as a temporary shop before deciding to keep the doors open for good, according to WWD, which first reported the conversion. The outlet notes the Austin location is the fourth for the brand, following stores in Chicago's West Loop, which opened in September, as well as earlier locations in New York and Los Angeles. The Austin store boasts Western-inspired details throughout, continuing a pattern of giving each city its own distinct look rather than a cookie-cutter format.
The original pop-up version of the store made a strong first impression back in June. Founder and chief executive officer Lindsay Carter told the newsletter Brand Baby that the Austin pop-up brought in “over 1,000 customers through the store doors during opening weekend alone” and that the brand “hit our entire sales goal for the month of June within the first two days of opening.” The same report notes Set Active gave Austin shoppers early access to its State Fair Collection at a June 12 grand opening, five days before the line launched online.
Texas Growth Outpaces Other Markets
Per the WWD report, Carter said Texas customer growth after the Austin pop-up opened outpaced growth seen in other regions, reinforcing the company's bet that physical stores can build loyalty that online sales alone cannot match. Carter described the retail strategy as centered on creating physical spaces that bring the brand to life beyond traditional shopping, the outlet reports. That philosophy extends to how Set Active treats its retail customers overall: more than 50 percent of shoppers in its stores are new to the brand, a notably higher first-time customer rate than what the company typically sees in an average month online, per WWD's reporting. Meanwhile, returning customers continue to generate a larger share of the brand's e-commerce sales than new shoppers do, suggesting stores and online sales are drawing somewhat different audiences.
Set Active's retail bet comes as its Chicago store has already generated outsized buzz. Consumer-generated content tied to that store's opening weekend and related events produced more than 100,000 impressions, according to figures cited in the WWD piece. The West Loop shop, as described in a separate report from the Chicago Sun-Times, was designed to feel like a Midwest lake house, complete with a lived-in living room feel and nods to the city's sports teams. Its 1,138-square-foot dressing room area even includes a couch, complimentary drinks, a television and a hook-and-ring toss game, the Sun-Times reported.
Six Stores by Next Year, With One Overhaul Planned
Set Active is not slowing down. Two more storefronts are slated to open in 2027, which would bring the brand's total count to six, WWD reports, though the company declined to share exactly where those new locations will be. The brand also expects to completely overhaul its West Village store in February 2027, signaling that even its established locations are subject to ongoing reinvention rather than staying static once they open.
The expansion is unfolding alongside a broader financial push: the brand is on target to nearly double its combined direct-to-consumer and retail revenue in 2026 compared with 2025, according to figures the company shared with WWD. Set Active has also leaned on exclusivity to drive store traffic, offering city-specific capsule collections at its Austin and Chicago locations that shoppers can only buy in person, rather than online.
A Broader Shift Toward Physical Retail
Set Active's push into storefronts tracks with a wider pattern of digitally native brands moving offline, a dynamic Forbes has pointed to as e-commerce remains strong even as brands seek a unified, in-person presence. At Set, the shift reflects a deliberate strategic pivot. A Set chief of staff named Sheldon told the Sun-Times that “Set has done tremendously well as a [direct-to-consumer] brand,” adding that growing into a more omnichannel business is “just a natural evolution.”
That evolution comes at a moment when overall apparel foot traffic has been soft. A dataset from PassBy, covering more than 50,000 stores and 8.7 billion visits, found that overall apparel and clothing foot traffic declined 1.76 percent year over year, with sporting-goods foot traffic down 0.92 percent even as PassBy noted that branded activewear stores were “capturing enthusiasm” from shoppers. Fabletics, another activewear brand, recorded a 5.16 percent increase in same-store traffic in the same PassBy dataset, suggesting Set Active's bet on experiential, city-specific retail fits a pattern of activewear brands bucking the broader apparel slump.
