3 Brands Giving The Fashion World A Run For Its Money

We’re nearing the time of year where high-end fashion brands would be planning the last few details of their Spring/Summer catwalks. But with the pandemic and an environmental need for these brands to reconsider seasonal launches, a new trend is starting to arise.

Last month, Highsnobiety, a daily news website that covers streetwear, sneakers and lifestyle released ‘The NEXT 20: The brands and cultural pioneers shaping youth culture’. And among the high fashion brands were three running brands more renowned for performance over style.

Hoka One One and On Running made it onto the list along with french brand Salomon who came out on top, thanks to recent collaborations with The Broken Arm, Marine Serre, and Fumito Ganryu. When most people think of sports/fashion crossovers their mind would no doubt wander to Nike or Adidas, so why are these newer, more performance-focussed brands starting to break through?

As Highsnobiety point out, lockdown has forced more people to utilise their exercise allowances when restrictions were at their toughest. And a higher amount of people running means a higher amount of people searching for and buying new running gear. According to NPD’s Matt Powell, the performance running market in the US alone is up 30 percent compared to May last year.

For a period during lockdown, Strava became the hotbed for humblebrag you’d usually associate with Instagram. As people couldn’t fill their feed with the usual summer onslaught of plane wings, parties and piña coladas, the ‘Run 5, Donate 5, Nominate 5’ challenge became the content of choice with participants posting selfies in their running outfits. This coupled with the upward trend of new runners will have been music to the ears of these growing running brands, particular those with notoriety amongst the fashion-conscious ‘hype beasts and sneakerheads’, thanks to recent collaborations.

Another hot topic the pandemic has shone additional light on is the impact that we are having on the environment. With planes grounded, cars left well alone and cities extensively shut down, air quality has improved, nature has begun healing and the largest hole in the ozone layer closed up in April, leading many people to reflect on current processes and practices that have previously contributed to the climate crisis.

The fashion industry has historically been a guilty party with its seasonal collections and normalisation of fast fashion but recently, some of the major players in this space have started to action change. Nike recently launched a new approach to sustainable innovation, with Circularity: Guiding the Future of Design. Its goal, to provide designers and product creators across the industry with a common language for circularity.

But consumers too are becoming more conscious about the things we are buying and the amount. People are opting for longer lasting, quality products as opposed to items that are cheaper and more disposable. With this in mind, running brands such a Hoka, Salomon and On, whose backgrounds lean more towards the rugged discipline of trail running, have a leg up on more traditional fashion brands thanks to their well made products that have the primary purpose of lasting.

2020 has been a crazy year in which running has seen a huge rise in popularity both among everyday folk and in wider culture. Whether this has been a trend influenced by the pandemic or not, the increased popularity of high-quality running brands is a welcome shift in culture and for the sake of our health systems, mental health and the climate, long may it continue.