{"id":1892,"date":"2026-09-18T17:31:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T08:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/india-marketing.jp\/india-news\/jockey-anniversary-campaign\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T17:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T08:31:33","slug":"jockey-anniversary-campaign","status":"publish","type":"india-news","link":"https:\/\/india-marketing.jp\/en\/india-news\/jockey-anniversary-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Jockey asks India at 150, how far can an innerwear brand stretch?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nThis article is based on what we could verify As of September 18, 2026<\/strong> in public records and news reports from India. India revises its tax rules and regulations frequently, and the details here may have changed since. When making an actual business decision, please check the latest information with primary sources such as the ministries responsible and local experts.\n<\/div>\n\n

US underwear icon Jockey marked its 150th anniversary on September 16, 2026, launching the anniversary campaign \"150 Years Young\" in India, under the tagline \"Never Stopped. Never Will.\" Jockey is run in India by licensee Page Industries, which has built the brand locally for around 30 years. It's a campaign that retells, through the anniversary, the brand's journey from underwear into athleisure, activewear, and dedicated lines for women, children, and Gen Z. How to update a brand's story in a maturing Indian apparel market is worth studying for Japan's innerwear and apparel companies too.<\/p>\n

The news: Jockey moves beyond underwear with \"150 Years Young\"<\/h2>\n

According to reports, Jockey India announced its anniversary campaign \"150 Years Young\" on September 16, 2026. Its core message, \"Never Stopped. Never Will.,\" is built around treating the 150-year milestone as a starting point rather than an endpoint. Nihal Rajan, Chief Marketing Officer of Jockey India, said, \"150 years is a huge milestone for Jockey, but for us, it is still just the beginning,\" explaining that the campaign reflects \"a larger shift in how everyday wear is being seen \u2014 from something purely functional to something more personal.\" Rather than leaning on the nostalgia typical of anniversary ads, the campaign puts future use-case expansion front and center.<\/p>\n

Background: Page Industries, expanding from an underwear maker into an everyday-wear brand<\/h2>\n

Jockey is a US-born innerwear brand, run in India by Page Industries as its exclusive licensee for manufacturing and sales. According to reports, Jockey's journey in India spans about 30 years, during which its product portfolio expanded from a single underwear line into athleisure, activewear, and dedicated lines for women, children, and Gen Z. The anniversary campaign emphasizes exactly this arc of expansion \u2014 \"from underwear to everyday wear.\" Keeping brand trust intact while pushing the occasions for wearing it from the bedroom out into daytime outings and workouts is the foundation underlying this story.<\/p>\n

What is Jockey trying to convey with its anniversary campaign?<\/h2>\n

Breaking down this messaging design, the aims sort into two. One is retelling the sense of security a long-lived brand carries not as \"oldness\" but as \"the strength of continuity.\" The phrase \"150 Years Young\" itself is a device asserting both heritage and youthfulness at once. The other is expanding the meaning of comfort from \"a function that doesn't constrict the body\" to \"the freedom to move as yourself.\" Rajan's phrase \"from functional to personal\" points toward positioning underwear not as a matter of appearance but as part of self-expression. It's clear the brand is using the anniversary milestone to update the brand's meaning, not to push price or functionality.<\/p>\n

How it is being received locally and in the industry<\/h2>\n

This campaign was reported by advertising trade outlet afaqs as an announcement from the brand side, and as of this writing, no third-party assessment or consumer survey results have been shown. What can be said with confidence here, then, is limited to what Jockey India itself is signaling about where it intends to focus. What comes through from the CMO's comment is a stance of using the anniversary as \"a declaration of expanding use cases\" rather than \"a declaration of achievement.\" The structure is one of using the anniversary as a foothold to carry the trust built in the underwear category out into the fiercely competitive adjacent territory of athleisure and everyday wear.<\/p>\n

Implications for Japanese companies: what can Japanese innerwear and apparel brands bring to the Indian market?<\/h2>\n

Jockey's move presents two issues for Japanese companies handling underwear or everyday wear in India. First is the design of bridging brand trust into an adjacent category \u2014 how to extend the reputation for cleanliness and quality built in innerwear into athleisure and sports use. Second is the technique of turning an anniversary or milestone into a proposal for future use cases rather than nostalgia. Among Japanese brands, Wacoal has set up a directly run flagship at one of Mumbai's top locations and is working to unify its India store network around customer service, and its approach to conveying the brand through in-store experience offers a reference point for other companies (Wacoal opens a directly-run flagship at Mumbai's best location, tying together an 18-store India network through service<\/a>) Uniqlo, too, has set a goal of growing its India business substantially, and its way of fighting to broaden its customer base with everyday wear serves as a foundation for Japanese brands rebuilding their own stores (Uniqlo declares \"10x growth\" in India<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Market ripple effects: how will apparel stores move as athleisure expands?<\/h2>\n

The trend of underwear brands bleeding into athleisure isn't limited to Jockey alone. Against a backdrop of growing health consciousness and gym-going, foreign players are entering the functional-material everyday-wear category one after another too. As Lululemon pushes ahead with its India entry, shelf space for high-performance wear aimed at active consumers is likely to keep expanding (Lululemon partners with Tata CLiQ for first entry into India in H2 2026<\/a>) As the boundaries between underwear, sportswear, and everyday wear blur, brands increasingly need to clearly state what occasion their clothing is for.<\/p>\n

Practical information and related links<\/h2>\n