Meet the Brands Making Running Cool Again

One humid Saturday in June, I jogged two blocks from my Brooklyn apartment to join a group run at Public Records, a vegan restaurant, cocktail bar, and nightclub in the rapidly de-industrializing neighborhood surrounding the Gowanus Canal. At first glance, the 100 or so runners might have looked like any of the city’s million other crews: lithe, youngish, tattooed.

There were, however, key differences. The group was overwhelmingly male, unusual in New York, with just a handful of women. And their outfits were surprisingly monochromatic, ranging from black shorts to dark gray tees, many adorned with the name of the run’s organizer—the Paris-based apparel brand Satisfy, which launched a decade ago with high-performance fabrics and a skate-punk aesthetic. Satisfy singlets can weigh just a few ounces; shirts have artificial “moth holes;” prices run into the hundreds of euros. In my blue Bandit shorts, maroon Tracksmith shirt, pink Hokas, and ink-free calves, I was out of place.

As the 10.5-mile run got moving, Satisfy’s influence became more palpable. One guy wore toe socks and carbon-plated Ving Marathon Sandals. Four miles in, he smoked a joint; six miles in, he noted we were passing the Brooklyn Banks, a legendary skateboard spot. I’ve been running in New York for more than 25 years, and let me tell you: This run felt different. And it was different because Satisfy is different. Along with brands such as Bandit, District Vision, and dozens of newcomers, Satisfy is changing not only what running looks like, but what running feels like. Drawing on influences from overlooked subcultures, appealing to those who might never before have considered themselves runners, and with equal concern for both aesthetics and performance, these companies are charting paths that lead away from the neon-poly big brands and toward something more intimate, individual, and exciting, both to look at and to run in.

“We believe that our apparel can reflect the lifestyles that we live, the cultures that we belong to, the music that we listen to,” Daniel Groh, Satisfy’s chief brand officer, says. “And it just so happens that it looks good, right?”

This shouldn’t be revolutionary, but it is. Since the first boom of the 1970s, running had a look: skinny, white, clean cut, disciplined, aspirational, professional. People like me took one glance and put their energy elsewhere—into skateboarding, nightlife, art, restaurants, fashion, music—only to discover, years later, that we actually liked running, were maybe even good at it, but still had to dress up in what felt like costumes in order to participate. We could not both be runners and be ourselves.

That began to change in 2014, when Tracksmith opened for business. With imagery that hearkened back to a preppy sports heritage, high-quality fabrics, and high prices (for the era), Tracksmith projected a vision of running at odds with that of Nike, Brooks, and Asics.

But for Lee Glandorf, who worked at Tracksmith from 2015 to 2023, departing as head of marketing, the revolution began earlier, with Oiselle, the women’s running brand that launched in 2007. “That was very much the ‘pink it, shrink it’ era,” Glandorf says, meaning that most big companies simply took men’s designs and adapted them, often crudely, for women. Oiselle, meanwhile, was “creating products with our bodies, physicality, preferences in mind.”

That thoughtfulness is what has defined the last decade or so of running fashion. Where Nike designs for Olympic-level athletes, then dilutes that technology for a mass audience, today’s independent brands are designing from the ground up. Bandit Running cofounder Ardith Singh once stopped me at random to ask how I liked the shorts I was running in; great, I told her, but one phone pocket on the right leg was not enough. Now the shorts have two. (You’re welcome, Bandit fans!) And District Vision co-founder Tom Daly told me, “We try to simplify that development process into ‘What do we and our friends want?’ And can we develop custom solutions for those people?”

At DV, which opened in 2016, those solutions bear the influence of Japanese minimalism, from monochrome tops accented with understated logos to a website chock-full of negative space. This isn’t just an aesthetic—it’s a whole philosophy: DV published a book about Sri Chinmoy’s annual 3,100-mile “Self-Transcendence” race, and they offer $9.99 downloadable mindfulness courses. It’s a little abstruse for me, sure, but it might be just what you love, and need.

Having a cool concept and nice designs is one thing; turning them into a viable business is another. And what proved there was a market for Satisfy, Bandit, District Vision, and everyone else was the pandemic, which brought millions of people, from millions of different backgrounds, to running. And with COVID closures limiting travel and other expenses, those newbies had disposable income to drop on indie outfits that once seemed extravagant, from $200 Nike Vaporflys to $400 Tracksmith jackets. (“It was scary how angry people were about $60 shorts,” Glandorf remembers of Tracksmith’s early days.) What’s more, as the pandemic eased, the vogue for social connection via run clubs grew, and Instagram and TikTok gave runners an easy way to show off their looks.

Which means that in the past five years, the number of independent running brands has absolutely exploded. There’s Literary Sport, the sleek Manhattan counterpart to Bandit’s Brooklyn brashness. There’s Over Over, which you could wear to a bottle-service nightclub, and Running Order, an overtly queer brand made entirely in New York City and San Francisco, that describes its products as “performance clubwear.” YMR Track Club is Tracksmith but Swedish, Pacesonic Sports is an Indonesian Satisfy, and Hermanos Koumori blends a Mexico City sensibility with internationalist scope. Canada’s Norda has a handcrafted $920 trail jacket, and Brandt-Sorenson, in Los Angeles, sells made-to-measure cashmere trail shorts for $650. To keep up with all the new companies—or to at least try—you need to follow Reddit’s r/runningfashion. Its mod, Cole Townsend, tracks the scene with his Running Supply Substack.

The Kazu Tourer, a DV and Tracksmith collab.Courtesy Tracksmith

Yes, this can feel ridiculous and overwhelming, and the designs can often look a little same-y, perhaps because we all generally have two legs, two arms, a torso, and a neck. There’s only so many silhouettes that suit those limbs and let us run freely. Old-timers, meanwhile, may scoff at the idea of “running fashion” altogether, not realizing that what seemed like the default uniforms of earlier eras were actually fashions designed specifically for them.

What we’re seeing now is what one friend of mine likened to the shift from network television to YouTube: There’s a brand to suit every niche and sub-niche. Some is stylish, considered, and high-quality, and some is … less so. But what each one does is bring a new person into the world of running, where their presence as part of the community is ultimately more important than whatever they happen to be wearing. And as fast as any of us might run, we know fashion will move even faster. At that Satisfy event, I heard one guy was growing (ahem) dissatisfied with the brand’s moves, following an €11 million round of funding, toward targeting a broader market. Such is the way of fashion; I’m sure he’ll find a new brand to glom onto.

Or he could start dressing like my friend Paul, a counterrevolutionary who recently crushed a 5K in 16:31 wearing an old cotton T-shirt with a knock-off Garfield design. I can’t say Paul looked good exactly, and I have a feeling he would have been happier running in basketball shorts, but as any catwalk aficionado knows, that’s not always what fashion is about.