Teen Spending Is Up, and Athleisure Is Losing Ground

Teen Spending is back. After shrinking through last year, adolescent wallets opened up again this fall: the latest survey from Piper Sandler finds that total teen spending rose six percent year over year. The real story is not the rebound itself but where the money is going. Teen Spending is migrating away from the athletic brands that dominated teen closets for the better part of a decade and toward fashion-first labels, specialty retailers and beauty counters.

The survey, now in its twenty-sixth year, polled nearly nine thousand teenagers and estimates that adolescents control roughly sixty-five billion dollars in spending power — about twenty-three hundred dollars per teen per year, according to Retail Dive's report on the findings. The rebound is striking because it lands against a gloomy backdrop: seventy percent of teens said the economy is getting worse, up from sixty-two percent in last fall's survey. Teenagers feel pessimistic about the economy and are spending more anyway, a split that says plenty about how this generation separates headlines from habits.

The athleisure era is fading

Athletic brands are losing their grip on teen closets. Piper Sandler said on LinkedIn that the fashion share held by athletic labels including Nike, Adidas and Lululemon fell to 29 percent, down from 32 percent last year and far below the 44 percent peak the group reached three years ago. Lululemon has now lost mindshare for the fifth consecutive survey, with the slide especially sharp among upper-income teen girls. In footwear the old order is wobbling too: Nike still leads with 45 percent of the overall share, but Nike, Adidas and New Balance each gave up ground while On, the Swiss running brand, gained share — particularly with teen boys.

Fashion retailers are winning the rebound

While athletic labels slipped, specialty retailers surged. American Eagle, H&M, Pacsun, Hollister and Urban accounted for 23 percent of fashion mindshare, up eight percentage points year over year, as teens traded athleisure for actual fashion. Apparel spending rose seven percent overall, with girls' apparel up ten percent, and teen girls' spending on apparel and accessories each climbed thirteen percent while footwear spending stayed flat. Coach became the runaway favorite in handbags, named by sixty percent of teen girls, up from forty-three percent last fall. The thrift habit is sticking as well: more than two in five upper-income teens bought clothing from secondhand shops this year. Beauty keeps climbing too, growing in line with apparel to a record share of the teen-girl wallet, with hair care posting the strongest gains and cosmetics and skin care recording smaller increases.

The two-year trend for teen girls shows how durable the shift is. Compared with the fall 2024 survey, teen girls' fashion spending is up fifteen percent, powered by accessories (up nineteen percent) and apparel (up eighteen percent), while footwear managed only a one percent gain over the same stretch. Elf remains the most popular cosmetics brand, and Medicube became the first K-beauty skin care brand to break into the top ten, landing in sixth place.

Brand loyalty is fragmenting by category rather than consolidating behind one logo. Ugg and Birkenstock topped teen girls' footwear preferences, Alo Yoga led in athletic apparel and Brandy Melville in general apparel, even as Nike, Adidas and New Balance kept their overall footwear lead despite losing share. The pattern is a closet built shelf by shelf: sneakers from one label, a handbag from another, jeans from a third — assembled, increasingly, from the thrift rack as well as the mall.

Where teens shop is shifting just as fast. Amazon was by far the most popular online destination, with every other online retailer stuck in single digits. Target drew about half of upper-income teen girls for apparel and footwear, and an even bigger share — 81 percent — for beauty and skin care. The picture is of a shopper who hunts across channels in the same month: discount runs, thrift stores, mall brands and one-click checkouts.

For Gen Z readers, the numbers confirm a vibe shift that has been building across social feeds all year: the head-to-toe athleisure uniform is giving way to thrifted finds, specialty-store hauls and bigger beauty budgets. The timing matters, because the fall survey lands just as retailers stock up for the holiday season, the year's biggest shopping stretch. Shoppers watching their budgets can take a cue from the broader mood — many young adults are already choosing the night in over the night out — and redirect the savings toward the pieces they actually want. And for anyone hunting the next viral product drop, the appetite for newness has not gone anywhere, as this week's Labubu gaming handheld launch shows.

The two-year arc of Teen Spending — contraction last fall, rebound this fall — marks a clean break from the athleisure monoculture. Three years ago the big athletic brands held nearly half of teens' fashion mindshare; today their share sits below a third, while fashion retailers, thrift shops and beauty counters divide the spoils. Teenagers are not spending less. They are spending differently — and the brands that read the room will own the next cycle.