Los Angeles-based brand Corts launches volleyball apparel built for female athletes

Women’s volleyball has nearly 800,000 active participants at the high school and junior club levels in the US alone (source: 2024–25 NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey)  – yet purpose-built performance apparel for the sport has never materialized from an established brand.

Corts, a Los Angeles-based direct-to-consumer apparel label founded by women for female athletes, launched a collection on 19 February targeting that gap directly. It’s the latest example of a pattern the industry can no longer ignore: when women design for women, both the product and the brand’s sustainability ethic tend to look fundamentally different.

The brand positions itself as a direct challenge to what founder Benton Weinstock calls a longstanding gap in women’s sports apparel. Weinstock – a fashion industry veteran who also owned and operated a volleyball club – says she built the line after watching players repeatedly adjust clothing that wasn’t engineered for the sport’s demands: explosive jumps, lateral dives and rapid changes in direction that generic activewear simply doesn’t accommodate.

Female athletes as co-designers, not afterthoughts

The collection covers core volleyball categories—compression leggings, shorts, sports bras and arm sleeves—alongside warm-up pieces and socks. The products are built around what Corts calls signature compression fabrics: sweat-resistant, breathable and seamless, with fit options across waistband rises and inseam lengths to accommodate different body types. Pricing ranges from $35 to $80 (approximately €33 to €75), positioning the brand in the premium performance segment below the upper tier occupied by established athletic majors.

Corts tested the collection with competitive collegiate and elite-level athletes prior to launch, a development cycle that included input from players competing at UCLA, USC and in the Athletes Unlimited professional volleyball league. The brand says feedback directly shaped seam placement and compression architecture.

This athlete-first development model – where the end user is a co-designer rather than an afterthought – is increasingly the hallmark of female-founded sports brands, and a deliberate departure from the industry norm of adapting men’s product for women’s bodies.

Female-founded brands lead on circularity

The Corts launch includes the Corts Circular Uniform Program, a take-back initiative allowing volleyball clubs to return used uniforms through a closed-loop recycling process managed by team-level “eco-ambassadors” at participating tournaments. It’s a meaningful signal, and not an isolated one.

Our observation of the broader sporting goods landscape shows that female-founded performance brands are far more likely to embed circularity and sustainability commitments at launch—before scale demands shortcuts. Brands like Girlfriend Collective and Sheertex built recycled-materials strategies into their founding proposition rather than retrofitting them under regulatory pressure. Corts follows that pattern, treating end-of-life product as a brand value rather than a compliance problem.

For a sport whose kit – spandex shorts, synthetic jerseys, polyester warm-up sets – generates substantial landfill volume at club and high school level, a team-based take-back scheme creates a structural mechanism that reaches players through the social infrastructure of sport, where behaviour change is most durable.

DTC and community, not wholesale

Corts is selling exclusively through its own website and a regional pop-up retail concept in Southern California, bypassing wholesale channels entirely. The brand reports sell-outs at its first Southern California pop-up, where player engagement was strong. Additional DTC channels include custom and bulk orders for clubs and team organisations, plus experiential activations at regional tournaments—a strategy designed to reach athletes in competition environments rather than on retail floors.