If you’ve been even remotely tapped into run culture for the last decade, you know Ciele Athletics. The Montreal-based brand is the blueprint for a successful running brand that toes the line between counterculture and mainstream. What started as a humble hat brand is now a full-fledged running apparel company that is seeing its vision for the sport come to fruition.
In 2025, running style is an actual thing we get to take seriously. Running culture is as big as it has ever been, with brands like Bandit and Satisfy pushing the limits of how fashion and sport can interact. But if it wasn’t for Ciele, we might all still be wearing crappy split shorts, ill-fitting singlets, and dumb looking hats. Don’t get me wrong, new brands would have cropped up no matter what, but Ciele was, for me, the first brand to cater to a group of people that wanted something different from their running gear.
I remember the first time I saw the Ciele GOCap, the brand’s first—and arguably most important—product. It stood out immediately with its unique colors and five-panel design (unique to running, at least). I’d seen a Supreme hat before, perhaps the most famous five-panel of all time, but Ciele was a brand doing it for the running community, doing something that hadn’t really been done before. I didn’t even wear running hats at the time, but the GOCap made me want to wear one. These days you won’t catch me dead without a running hat, and most of the time, I’m rocking a Ciele cap.
That’s the power of the GOCap: You see it and you know it’s special. The brand is much more than one cap, though; it has an undeniable je ne sais quoi about it (apologies to my French-Canadian neighbors, but I had to say it). It’s not dominating the social media scene, its collabs are infrequent and under-the-radar, but everything it puts out is an absolute banger. Its half-tights are some of the best I’ve ever worn, its T-shirts have found a regular place in my rotation, and, as the brand is based in the Great White North, its winter gear is, predictably, second to none.
Ten years into its existence and Ciele could certainly be bigger, but I’m not sure that’s the goal. The brand is extremely active in its local running scene, supporting multiple running crews without much fanfare. Ciele isn’t going to launch expansive, world-beating campaigns every few months, but if you ask a Montrealer where they’re headed for a weeknight run, it’s probably a Ciele-sponsored crew. Today’s running culture may not be inundated with Ciele gear, but the brand’s impact goes deeper than its apparel.
With that said, if Ciele Athletics won’t shout its name from the rooftops, I will. You need to get a GOCap and you need to check out the brand’s Tier-1 apparel. The brand may have changed the game 10 years ago, but it’s still leading the charge today, even if its team doesn’t want to admit it.
