Get set: Running brand puts sportswear back on track

The Boston-based brand – set up by Matt Taylor, former head of global marketing for running, training and fitness categories at Puma, and Luke Scheybeler, co-founder of cycling brand Rapha – has started out with a men’s range inspired by the Ivy league and classic American menswear.

The collection includes a Cornell-striped Van Cortlandt singlet and matching shorts, a Grayboy T-shirt, Longfellow shorts and Factory Floor spike bag in a range of colours. The items are designed to ‘slip seamlessly from different parts of your life, from run to coffee shop to grocery store to home’ according to the duo.

Retailing exclusively online initially, garments will be shipped directly to consumers in the UK, US and Canada, and are priced from $35 to $90.

The brand, which has the tagline ‘Running deserves better,’ was borne out of a frustration with the slow pace and cheaply made products of a ‘watered down’ sports industry. ‘Sportswear has become so stripped back – all the references to where it has come from matter and mean something,’ says Scheybeler. ‘Often sports brands see their products as purely technology, it’s got to get you up the mountain quicker, or it’s got to allow you to grip onto the rock more easily. We see clothing as culture – as well as technology.’

For more examples of brands that are finding reverence for the history and valour that once lay at the heart of sport, read our Re-valorised sport microtrend.