Running's Fashion Renaissance
Thoughts on the NYC Marathon brand explosion and how we got here...
This week, Business of Fashion pulled a New York Times (discovering a trend after it has hit its high watermark), publishing a story on “How Marathons Became Fashion Shows” that echoed a story Grace Cook wrote in the Financial Times this February down to the headline: “For runners, marathons have become the new ‘fashion weeks.’” To be fair to the author, Daniel-Yaw Miller, whose reporting I admire, he launched the sports beat at BoF this spring, so he hasn’t yet had a Marathon Major in a global fashion capital to cover. And of course, New York is a beast all its own.
Still, I’m salty. Not only because I pitched this exact headline for years at Tracksmith (and my dear friend Massimo Alpian worked on the one in FT for ages, too), but also because it seems that the marathon-as-fashion-show trend needed to reach a fever pitch before some people fully caught on.1
Because that’s where we’re at in running – especially in New York – right now: A fever pitch. The momentum coming out of Covid has been supercharged by the emergence of run club Tiktok, Gen Z’s penchant for using the marathon as a panacea for their quarter-life crisis, the rise of Strava, and non-endemic brands’ desires to capitalize on the high-earning, high-spending running consumer.
As I’ve mentioned before, when I started at Tracksmith in 2016 (and when the brand launched in 2014), the running ecosystem was very different. Runners, especially the core, were – let’s be honest – nerds. And brands treated them like nerds. Runners were skeptical about spending a lot of money on gear, taking pride in wearing their free race shirts and nylon short shorts to death. This comment from a very angry Let’s Run thread in 2014 sums it up: “When an Oiselle or a Lululemon or a Tracksmith comes along, they get hammered by everyone within this community as being pretentious, overpriced and stupid. We take every chance we get to make jokes and dissuade people from supporting them.” There was no such thing as running fashion. Unless you counted polyester and neon as chic.
That began changing with entrants to the running scene like Oiselle (one of the first movers when they launched in 2007 – they even hosted a fashion show at NYFW in 2013), Janjii (2012), Ciele (2014), Tracksmith (2014), Satisfy (2015), Soar (2015), and District Vision (2016). These early “boutique” running brands were the first to focus purely on apparel and accessories instead of footwear like the legacy brands. Things sped up as Lululemon and Outdoor Voices popularized and normalized pricey activewear.
The market changed forever in 2017 when Nike introduced the 4%: a $200+ racing shoe that you could only really wear a few times if you’re using it right. This transformed the way runners thought about gear and smashed their price sensitivity. Runners started acting more like cyclists: eager to spend money and to showcase their allegiance to their sport through their gear. Men even began wearing spandex short tights to run slowly (this sounds rude, but it’s also true.) Everything from your Near Earth socks to your Ciele hat became signifiers: I’m serious about this (and have money to burn).
The marathon majors transformed alongside the running market. When Tracksmith started popping up at the Chicago Marathon in 2018 (having hosted pop-ups in Boston since 2015 and New York since 2016) they were the only brand in town activating outside of the expo or existing running retailers. What started with a small footprint in the library of the lobby of the Chicago Athletic Association hotel has since expanded to an entire swimming-pool-sized event space. Now, a plethora of brands eschew the expo to host pop-ups in Chicago and at nearly every Major.
The New York Marathon has seen a similar supercharged transformation. The city has always been a hotbed for run clubs and unsactioned racing. And the Marathon has long been a magnet for brands, but now the stakes are even higher. I shared this roundup I found on Reddit/r/runningfashion in last week’s newsletter, which included so many brand activations that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to keep up. Even New Balance, which sponsors the marathon and as such has its logos all over the expo and the course, powered their own pop-ups: a Clubhouse with Fleetfeet in Columbus Circle and an Endorphins Run Club pop-up in Soho. Some run clubs have joined the fray, building pop-ups complete with art exhibitions and merch (I am very here for this.)
Before I dive into the activations that caught my eye, I’d be remiss not to stand on my run culture soapbox and remind folks that the current boom is built on the tireless effort of the original run crew leaders who’ve been hard at work for more than a decade creating a more inclusive running culture. People like Charlie Dark of Run Dem Crew, Alison Mariella Desir of Harlem Run, Sid Baptista at Pioneers, Richard Issa of Issa Run Crew, Lionel Brodie of Original Propaganda Athletic Club, Jessie Zappo of Girls Run NYC and Bridge Runners, Knox Robinson at Black Roses and so many more crew leaders, notably women and people of color, have transformed running and run clubs into the global community it is today.
Anyway, before I become saltier, here are the NYC Marathon activations that stood out to me amid all the noise:
Old Man Run Club x Long Distance – I loved this pop-up, which showcased the way run crew culture and creativity intersect. The pop-up included a photography exhibition and a merch shop for global run crew gear.
Hoka – Hoka built its brand off of a tightly curated marketing strategy in which they courted fashionistas on one hand and nerdy runners on the other. Their efforts in NYC underscored this two-pronged attack, with a three-day takeover of luxury boutique ESSX for the cool kids and another with Citius Mag at their flagship for the running nerds. This remains a brilliant strategy. (Also how good was the Citius Station build out by Rhoam Creative?)
Asics x Bandit – Asics, which has had a fashion resurgence in lifestyle, took a different tactic by choosing to work with Bandit, “NYC’s leading running brand” (their words), to meld fashion with sport. They’ve been collaborating together for a bit on training programming and this feels like a smart payoff for their efforts. It’s also noteworthy that Asics is willing to partner with Bandit, given they both make apparel. They say you if you want to collaborate, you should either go Bigger or Cooler, in which case both sides of this equation are winning. (FWIW I liked their video announcing the collab a lot – they’re nailing high-concept social.)
On the topic of being cool, John Ortved covered Bandit’s rise for the NY Times. I am not sure if this is the vibe Grace Clarke mentioned in her Q&A last week but the story’s lede encapsulates the sort of bro-ey, Greenpoint, hipper-than-though energy the brand tends to emanate: “This summer, Ashley Ellefson, a 39-year-old operations executive, was running along Manhattan’s East River Promenade when she spotted a group of men, many of them clad in Bandit Running gear, coming toward her. They ran her off the road.”
Clearly Bandit has a lot of momentum in NYC (and on social media), as per this quote from the story: “In New York, if you go to any run club, like 70 percent of people will be wearing the socks.” FWIW, I’m spotting it more often in Boston (at Jamaica Pond and Danehy Track, specifically – will report back from the BAA Half next weekend) but it’s nowhere near NYC levels of saturation yet. That’s always the big question – will the vibes translate elsewhere? r/running-fashion and (my favorite sub-reddit) r/blogsnark have thoughts!
New Balance - As I mentioned, it’s pretty wild to me that New Balance, which sponsors the race and thus has plenty of eyeballs on it all weekend, entered the pop-up fray too. They teamed up with Fleet Feet for The Clubhouse, a collaborative pop-up store on the ground level of the Columbus Circle Shops, and with Endorphins Run Club for their SoHo activation. I’m into the community-focused approach here.
On – I’ve loved On’s arty activations at Moma P.S. 1 for the last couple of marathons. This year they were a little more product-focused, bringing their LightSpray robot to their On Labs pop-up in SoHo. It looked cool.
As always they do a good job of engaging with high-profile, running/movement-adjacent influencers in a way that feels authentic.
On also had a pretty epic cheer station set up in Williamsburg with Leon’s Bagels (Cadence, a sleek new hydration brand, also teamed up with them.) I liked their On Athletic Club soccer scarves too (running needs more fan merch!).
Minted X Saucony – For some reason my Millennial mom brain cannot compute what Minted is (an influencer? a brand?) but I have to admit that the all-blue Saucony Endorphin Pro they released for NYC and their pop-up was chic.
I wasn’t able to make it to New York for the race weekend this year as I was trapped at home by a sick, teething baby in a helmet, so you could argue some of these takes may not be fully informed. I’d argue that scrolling Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit at 2 a.m. is actually the perfect way to take in the vibes from a city 216 miles away. It’s impossible to visit every single one of these activations in person anyway, so one could argue I have a clearer view of it all from afar. (One is me.)
Anyway, to close out this rant I’ll note that perhaps there is no better indication that marathons have officially jumped the brand shark than the fact that Hubspot is advertising around them.
These ads are like the Nike ones, but more annoying. Who wants to think about work when they’re running a marathon? (Also as I am editing this I am realizing these are probably fake OOH but still, the point stands.)
Did I miss anything?
Quick Thoughts
Things That Drew My Eye or Ire…
Those who were reading The Sweat Lookbook back in July will remember my hatred for the Ralph Lauren Opening Ceremony looks, especially the tailoring. Simone Biles’ Netflix documentary vindicates my take, as Biles and Jordan Chiles are shown hating on their denim-button-down-blazer fits. “You know when you put on an outfit and it’s really not it? I’m trying to see the vision like I’m trying to see it through."
As NYC was winding down, it was announced that Sydney is now the 7th World Marathon Major. It will be interesting to see how brands choose to engage Down Under – will the fashion week vibes translate? Perhaps New Balance has the jump on things, they hosted runners from Sydney’s Unofficial Run Club as part of their NYC initiatives.
This piece in Vogue Business is well worth your time if you’re intrigued by how trends in fashion rise and fall. Pretty relevant to our discussion above, too.
I’m super excited to welcome a host of new subscribers sent here by Substack royalty Erika Veurink and Emily Sundberg interacting with last week’s Grace Clarke newsletter. Here’s hoping you like running rants. If you don’t, never fear. I’ve got lots of fun content on deck for the coming weeks, including an exciting new Q&A, skiwear round-up, and a sporty gift guide focused on women-founded brands. As always, let me know below if there’s something (or someone!) specific you’d like to see here.
I’m almost certainly preaching to the choir here, but on the off chance it inspires even one person, please, please, please vote! From my vantage point, Michelle Obama said it best:
Upon reflection, this saltiness is born of classic Boston vs New York insecurities. Bostonians carry an unshakeable sense that people won’t recognize something as cool or a trend until it takes off in New York. I own this chip on my shoulder with pride.
It’s like this newsletter was specifically designed to cover everything I am interested in about running. I love it.
I’ve been loving your work! This thought piece takes the cake.
I date one of those nerdy runners who rocks an old race shirt & has an OG Garmin tucked away in the closest. It’s a little brick on your wrist.
We talk a lot about running culture across the world & in Chicago. We have a love hate relationship for the growth it’s had. I am excited and nosey to see how it continues, or doesn’t, in the future! And to keep reading your thoughts on it.