Gallery Dept Starts Activewear With DÉPT. ACTIVE

Gallery Dept has launched an activewear line, and the DÉPT. ACTIVE capsule is now available. Three athletes front it, credited by handle as @TessaJohnstonn, @LucasDosSantosBoxer and @JosueThomas, with photography credited to @jeremysantosjr. For a Los Angeles label that built its name on paint dragged across vintage denim, a capsule named for sport is a clear turn toward performance clothing.

It lands just under six months after the label put out two words, RUNNING DEPT., with no product attached. Gallery Dept has not said the two are linked, but the sequence is on the record, and it changes how the new capsule reads.

Early May Was a Name. Late October Is a Capsule.

Gallery Dept floated RUNNING DEPT. in early May 2026 as a category name with no price, drop date or product behind it, and the DÉPT. ACTIVE capsule is a sport coded release that follows it. The two word tease argued that Josué Thomas names a territory before he fills it, and an activewear capsule is a plausible way to fill one. The new name drops the word running and keeps the department, so it covers a wider field: training, court and gym clothes, not only shoes.

The athlete credits point the same direction. The handle @LucasDosSantosBoxer puts a boxer in the frame, which fits a label whose ASICS and Vans work already touched sport. The third credit, @JosueThomas, matches the founder's own name, and the capsule does not say whether it is him. Founder or not, an athlete led credit list is a different sales pitch from the celebrity wardrobe placements the label leaned on earlier.

Nylon Shorts and Mesh Court Shorts Were Already on the Rack

Gallery Dept did not arrive at activewear empty handed. The label has sold a Zuma Nylon Short, listed on StockX in red for SS22 with a July 9, 2022 release date, and again in white for SS23. MR PORTER carries its Venice Court shorts, a wide leg basketball cut in mesh with webbing trim and a logo print.

Those pieces were streetwear that borrowed sport shapes. DÉPT. ACTIVE reverses the order: the name and the athlete casting put sport first and the paint second. Gallery Dept also made apparel around its ASICS GT 2160 sneaker, and that was an earlier step toward performance footwear. Add the OTW by Vans Authentic 44 that went on sale December 11, 2025, with paint drips across the toe and the words Art That Kills on the sidewall, and the line from art object to sports object is already drawn across ASICS and Vans.

Eyewear, a Chateau Print, Now Sport

Gallery Dept has stacked category expansions all year. In July it showed its first eyewear collection, five silhouettes in acetate and metal, with frames named for dates that matter to Thomas, including November 14, 1978, sold on gallerydept.com and in the Los Angeles and Miami stores. On September 11 it put the Chateau Ranch Printed Set in the same three places, moving the Chateau Josué lifestyle line off candles and bathrobes and onto a shirt and pant. In August it ran the chain link Cage print across the Ventura fit in its Denim Archive Project release.

Read in order, 2026 is the year the label stops being a clothing brand with a studio and becomes a studio with departments. Eyewear, home goods turned print, denim archive and now activewear each get a name, a venue and a launch. DÉPT. ACTIVE is the department aimed at a body in motion instead of a body on a sidewalk.

Fabric, Piece Count and Price Are Still Unpublished

The launch credits name the capsule, the athletes and the photographer. It does not name a single fabric, a piece list or a weight, and the searches run for this piece surfaced no product page for DÉPT. ACTIVE. Until they do, the nylon of the Zuma short and the mesh of the Venice Court cut are the best guide to what sport means at Gallery Dept, and both are guesses about this capsule, not facts about it.

That gap matters because activewear is judged on construction. A short either wicks and holds a seam under a hard session or it does not, and hand finished distressing, the label's signature, is a liability in a training garment. The test is whether Gallery Dept keeps the studio hand on the pieces without breaking the function.

Verdict: wait for the product pages and the fabric specs before spending. If the capsule keeps nylon and mesh under a clean print, it earns a place in a training bag. If it comes in painted and frayed, it is a collectible that happens to be athletic. Either outcome continues a year in which Gallery Dept has released into a new department roughly every month, from the July eyewear to the September Chateau set and now sport.