At Dover Street Market’s Rose Bakery in Paris on day four of Men’s Fashion Week, around 40 runners arrived for breakfast, drenched in sweat. The invite-only event was being hosted by Satisfy, the French running brand with a punk rock aesthetic. Afterwards, the brand hosted showroom appointments for buyers to place orders for its Spring/Summer 2027 collection.
Just two days earlier, District Vision, the design-led LA brand, hosted an evening drinks reception in its showroom in the Marais; guests from retailers such as Mr Porter were invited for a night of relationship-building and organic networking in an environment that’s more relaxed than a typical sales meeting. Sports brands have not historically been a regular fixture of the Paris Fashion Week landscape, and yet, it’s increasingly common: this is how modern running brands are doing business.
Where marathon weekends have become a boon for customer events, Paris Fashion Week has become the running industry’s luxury trade show for brands with wholesale ambitions. Running brands once almost exclusively sold their wares into mainstream specialty stores, either via individual appointments in local markets or through sport-specific trade shows, such as The Running Event (TRE) in Texas. But today, fashion-led retailers are among the biggest stockists for many style-minded performance brands focused on apparel. Plus, Paris Fashion Week is an excellent place to capture eyeballs.
“It’s the one place where 120 of our wholesale accounts show up, all of our sales agents reliably show up, and our orders are growing 30-40% season-on-season,” says Max Vallot, co-founder of District Vision.
Running has become a fashionable pursuit in recent years. Running clubs were popularized as a sober way to socialize, and completing a marathon — once a niche pursuit — has emerged as a modern status symbol for today’s consumer. The global running apparel and footwear industry was worth $23.3 billion in 2024, according to a report by Custom Market Insights; it’s expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.2% until 2033, hitting $51.6 billion. “We’re a luxury retailer, but our sports category is on a constantly upward trajectory,” says Daniel Todd, head of buying at Mr Porter, which stocks design-minded brands like District Vision, Satisfy, Norda, and Literary Sport, among others (the latter is known as “The Row of running”). “Previously, sports was driven by footwear, but right now, there’s stronger growth in the apparel category.”
It makes sense. The lines between sportswear and lifestyle continue to blur, as performance labels become part of affluent consumers’ daily wardrobes, often paired with luxury fashion. “We’ve always said we make products for people who run, not ‘runners’,” says Daniel Groh, head of design at Satisfy. “That naturally attracts a much broader audience.” Similar to how Arc’teryx Beta jackets became an urban staple, performance pieces today don’t always look like performance wear. District Vision’s collection includes lightweight, floppy-collared merino sweaters, for example, which are sold alongside its precision sports eyewear that’s handmade in Japan.
This seamless crossover is a key rationale behind Paris Fashion Week as a location for likeminded brands; currently, there’s no dedicated trade show for style-led premium brands within sport. As a result, this proximity to luxury fashion is changing how brands are showing up in the market: running as a sector has typically focused on open, community events, but in Paris, the invites are gated and it rarely involves running. On Wednesday, Literary Sport held a morning walk and breakfast to launch its vibram-soled sandals, while on Friday evening, On held a dinner for 60 of its network, where guests were served an elegant, multi-course feast that included hand-blown sugar flowers for dessert; they sat at a purpose-built spherical table, designed to reflect the On logo. Such evening cocktails and dinners mimic the hospitality events organized by luxury fashion players.
On has now hit a scale that rivals some incumbents. But nurturing wholesale partnerships with fashion stores allow smaller, independent sports brands to reach a broader customer base beyond running. The price point of their products also gives them a more natural alignment with luxury retailers than traditional running stores. Literary Sport’s bike shorts for women retail for £176, District Vision’s waffle-knit tops cost £160, while Satisfy’s shorts start at £150. “Sport has traditionally been very discount-driven,” says Todd. “When you sit these brands alongside the cost of luxury products, of course it’s still expensive, but the value ratio is favorable.”
The benefits of luxury wholesale
The luxury segment of the running market is currently small. Wholesale partnerships with global fashion retailers offer brands more customers, global visibility, a bigger buy (which earns a small brand a better cost price at the factory), and they can often pay for products upfront. “For the first seven years, we wouldn’t have got our foot in the door at some factories [had it not been for the larger order volumes bought by fashion retailers],” says Tom Daly, District Vision’s co-founder. The business is still predominantly direct-to-consumer (DTC) — the brand recently opened its first store in Los Angeles — but wholesale is an important part of its strategy, too, and is especially relevant amid the tariffs imposed on overseas shipments.
Wholesale, says Daly, fuels the “commercial engine”. And the buying relationships nurtured with fashion stores has enabled the brand to grow the business in line with the market; that external guidance about the wants and needs of a global customer can be invaluable for smaller brands. “We will always prioritize our DTC customer with our collections, but we have responded to buyer feedback very fast and aggressively, so it’s now much closer to the market,” adds Vallot. “It’s better priced, it’s better merchandise — we’ve expanded our accessories as entry-level price points based on buyer ask.”
Satisfy’s business is split 50-50 between direct-to-consumer and wholesale, and 70% of its wholesale accounts are fashion stores. In its decade since launch, it has grown to a brand with €11 million in annual revenues; in 2025, it secured €11 million in Series B funding, led by Chanel heir David Wertheimer. The brand has plans to become a €100 million company. The remaining 30% of wholesale accounts are for independent, design-led running stores — an increasing market sector, especially within Europe. Stores such as Knees Up (London), Handshake (Brussels), alongside Metta Running House (Mexico City), Long Slow Distance (LA), and Running Wylder (San Francisco) are building retail outlets that align with a fashion concept boutique. The brands’ design-led products created a need for a different kind of retail experience to Runners Need, Sports Direct, or Dick’s Sporting Goods — otherwise uninspiring environments that are function-first experiences.
Given not every brand has a physical store, boutique run retailers play an important role in getting brands’ products in front of design-minded customers. Plus, these stores are typically owned and operated by runners — ones who are channeling their enthusiasm and interest in the sport into a business. Many, like Knees Up and Handshake, were even born out of run clubs.
This means the demographic of buyers at Paris Fashion Week Men’s is changing, too. It’s no longer just about reaching major luxury retailers, but getting orders from smaller specialty stores: one type of retailer gives a brand reach, while the other gives it credibility within the space. Unna, from Stockholm, and Literary Sport, from Toronto, are both sold at Knees Up in London — it’s a “living room” type space with a cafe, a co-work area, and a concept boutique frequented by runners and cyclists. For brands like Unna, this visibility for new customer acquisition is “unparalleled”, says Unna founder John-Ruben Holtback. Knees Up co-owner Matt Horrocks and buyer Ethan Buttress were both in Paris this season, and both formerly held roles in marketing (with Buttress working for menswear brand Oliver Spencer). For them, Paris is the primary trade show they visit to spend their budget and discover brands; a trip to the US for an alternative such as TRE is cost-prohibitive for small independents, especially those in Europe.
“Our network has exploded since we started coming to Paris,” says Horrocks. “It’s a melting pot of buyers and creatives, and for me, it’s a chance to have meetings with brands to create opportunities for the future of the business.” For small stores, Paris offers the prospect of expanding their networks as well as improving their buys. Knees Up hosted a morning run that was attended by representatives from Hoka and Blender, a sales agency in Norway. Smaller independent brands enjoy similar benefits. Creativity and a sense of dynamism are what makes Paris as a hub so special: the growing perception among young stores and brands is that TRE is so traditional, it doesn’t offer the sports-as-lifestyle vibe alignment that is found during fashion week — and which is essential for the way these businesses are building their ecosystems.
While PFW is fertile ground for new business, however, wholesale partnerships need to be navigated carefully, and many brands, including District Vision, are “being more cautious” about the order quantities placed with boutique stores, according to Vallot. Enthusiasm for and special interest within running doesn’t necessarily equate to building a stable retail enterprise; there’s a difference in having a community, and being able to sell to that community. Satisfy is also being more cautious about the rollout of its new women’s collection. “It’s a very nascent and exciting market, but not all of them are showing the sell through and payment reliability that a small brand like District Vision is dependent on,” says Vallot. “During Covid, we thought we were going to go under… until Mr Porter paid for their orders upfront.”
Operating on the fashion calendar is not only a way for running brands to secure a broader cultural positioning and a bigger customer base, it can be a way of future-proofing their businesses, too.
Source: Vogue
