We know exactly how we want our activewear to fit. WildBody founder Jade Payne wants us to feel just as comfortable asking how it was made.

There is a particular kind of loyalty reserved for a good pair of leggings. The waistband stays put. You can squat without checking the mirror. They go from a morning class to coffee, then somehow stay on for the rest of the day. Once you find that pair, you buy another colour.
You know how they fit. You may know much less about how they were made.
Jade Payne, the founder of WildBody, had not thought much about it either. After being diagnosed with kidney cancer at 33, the mother of four began questioning the everyday products she had previously taken for granted: food, skincare, cleaning products and plastics. Activewear came later.
Reading about PFAS in textiles and reports of BPA in sports bras prompted her to look more closely at her training clothes. She wanted to understand the fabric, the dyes and the processes behind them.
She is clear about what that search does and does not mean. “I’m not saying my activewear caused my cancer. I would never make that claim,” she says. “Cancer was simply the can-opener that made me start asking questions I’d never thought to ask before.”
The search that followed was about finding a choice she felt was missing. She also understood why the existing options looked the way they did. “Synthetic activewear has dominated for a reason,” she says. “It performs incredibly well and the entire industry has been built around it.”

THE SEARCH FOR ANOTHER OPTION

Jade was looking for cotton-based activewear she could train in, with more information about what went into it. Her question was simple: why couldn’t women have another option? Finding someone willing to make it meant approaching more than 50 manufacturers.
Almost half, she says, did not want to touch cotton activewear. Even more were unwilling to provide the supply-chain transparency she requested. She wanted GOTS-certified organic cotton and OEKO-TEX certified dyes, with certificates she could actually see. Then she asked for Australian sizes 4 to 22: ten sizes to develop for a business with no track record.
“It was all the unknowns,” she says. “Cotton performance, certifications, transparency, ten sizes and a completely new brand. For most manufacturers, it was simply too hard.”

MAKING IT WORK

Eventually, one said yes. That did not mean everything suddenly worked. There were failed samples, mounting costs and four children to raise while Jade was rebuilding her life after cancer. She considered walking away more than once.
“Every time someone told me it couldn’t be done, it almost made me want to prove it more,” she says. She also suspected she was not the only woman looking for something different.

THE WOMEN WHO WERE ALREADY WAITING

Jade expected to spend years explaining why natural-fibre activewear mattered to her. Instead, women told her they had already been searching for it.
WildBody has since sold out four times. But what stays with Jade is that the response has gone beyond fabric. Women have noticed the different sizes, ages and bodies represented by the brand.
“WildBody isn’t about telling women they need to change their bodies to wear activewear,” she says. “The clothing needs to work for women’s bodies.”
Anyone who has stood in a fitting room wondering whether the problem is the leggings or their body will understand the distinction. For Jade, developing ten sizes belonged in the original manufacturing brief, alongside the fabric and certifications. Fit was part of the job from the start.

A BETTER QUESTION

For the woman reading this in her favourite leggings, Jade’s message is simple: you do not need to throw them away. Start asking questions when you next shop. What is this made from? How was it dyed? What standards does the brand use, and can it show you the certificates?
“Give women the information and let them make the choice for themselves,” she says.

WHAT COMES NEXT

She wants that choice to become ordinary. Her plans stretch beyond leggings into running, training, maternity and everyday movement, with international expansion firmly in view. In ten years, she hopes natural-fibre performance clothing will no longer be considered an alternative category. If larger brands invest in it too, she will consider that progress.
There is another reason she wants the business to grow. Jade says $2 from every order goes to Love Your Sister, the cancer-research charity she chose for its commitment to precision treatment. Having been a patient herself, she wanted that contribution built into WildBody from the beginning.
Ask what success means personally, though, and she returns to the four people who have watched all of this happen.
“I have four kids who watched their mum get cancer at 33. I want them to watch what happened next too.”

WORDS: SUSANNA STANG-HOLM