(runners) HIGHEST FIVE PT.2
What‘s hot in running this week?
It‘s sunday so here we go with the second issue of HIGHEST FIVE, your weekly reminder of what‘s been hot, discussed or simply interesting to know in running this week. London Marathon‘s has been pretty top notch, but two media recommendations as well: Trailrunnermag looked into Kipchoge‘s training and has some take-aways and (you know we had ‚em first) Financial Times talks about indie running brands.
Biggest topic, and i‘m hoping for your opinions, is Zara going into trailrunning with a pretty Satisfy-esque content creation. I‘m hoping for your thoughts.
But let‘s start with my own project:
1 Runners Highest *City to summit*
The very first Runners Highest video content went live this week and because i‘m proud I have to share it again. Make your to watch and comment your feedback (via Instagram) more‘s to follow soon!
2 Financial Times about indie running brands
Financial Times recently had a huge article about brands such as Satisfy, Weird, Soar & Co and how they are starting a revolution and challenge the big brands. Nothing new for you and me, I guess, but I like the topic being talked about. Read it here
(By the way the timing couldn‘t be better if you see the last topic)
3 Trailrunnermag on take-aways from Kipchoge‘s training methods
Really enjoyed this one. Don‘t wanna spoil but easy training is key for Eliud so it might be for you & me too. Trailrunnermag identified 4 take-aways that could have an impact on everyone‘s training. Read here.
4 NNORMAL Tomir
So just before the release of NNORMAL‘s first sneaker, a second one is revealed. Looks nice & Killian says it‘s a best-in-class-mixture. We‘ll see, i‘m curious!
5 adidas ADIZERO PRIME X STRUNG
Attention: pro athletes can‘t compete in these. We’ll i‘m no pro and these are straight fire. I guess adidas will tell us soon, what exactly STRUNG is, but even it’s just a fancy marketing word, the woven upper looks straight fire. Beautiful pair of shoes, 5/5.
6 Zara goes trail running kinda‘
So apparently Zara just released a trailrunning collection and as one might think, much of it looks more than familiar. The whole campaign pretty much looks like they wanted to make it Satisfy, product-wise you‘ll also find some District Vision, Soar Running, even some Hoka-ish trail running sneakers. It‘s crazy how fast fashion is just able to „copy“ a style in the matter of a second.
Yet i have to admit that some of the pieces (isolated) look not that bad, also most of the pieces wouldn’t look like the above mentioned when not put together in an outfit like they did and so on. Pls don‘t kill the messenger and drop your opinion below.
All this and putting it in the content of trailrunning being a huge trend right now and indie brands making it to articles in FT (see above) brings me to questions I wanna ask you as I don‘t think it‘s up to me to give the right answer (but yeah, it’s pretty much a copycat thing imo):
Is it just pure stealing and copying a style? If yes, is that an honor, a sign of a certain style becoming more and more mainstream or just „what fast fashion does“? I mean if you look at the products isolated, many of them are just monochrome pieces, some with wording or details on it. The outfits and the campaign visuals make em „Satisfy“ etc.
Is it how fashion works? Is this the point where indie brands have to evolve further and make „the next thing“ whether it‘s fair or not? Does Zara make a style available for a higher number of people due to cheap prices and that‘s in the end good for our sport?
You see, it‘s not easy for me and i‘m pretty conflicted. Comment below or send an email - i‘ll try to feature your opinions in a new substack next week!
Edit: just saw that they took out the main campaign motif - see below.
