Why on earth is a menswear brand hosting runs?
Why on earth is a menswear brand hosting runs?
Men's fashion brand 3sixteen hosted its second series of running events this summer. Is this an indicator of how mainstream running has become?
Has running culture bled into the mainstream to the point that it’s just another double-page spread in men’s lifestyle magazines now? Kinda.
That’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about running culture going mainstream. We’re talking about running being a newsworthy-enough subculture to regularly feature in mainstream newspapers, just like rock music. We’re talking about running being as normal as selvedge denim, craft beer, vinyl records, and small-batch coffee.
All of those are things that 3sixteen, a 21-year-old New York-based menswear brand have featured in their Manhattan flagship store – a place that stocks clothes that are almost heirloom pieces; clothes that you expect to spend serious money on, but you also expect to wear them forever, maybe. They hosted their second annual Summer Series of three monthly runs from that Nolita base. I spoke to founder Andrew Chen about how he got to the point that running was the next corner of culture that his brand explored.
Leading from the top
In Los Angeles, we’ve got a run club that meets at the city’s premier vegan grocery store. On the surface, it might seem like a cynical jump onto the running boom bandwagon, but one of Besties’ owners is an ardent runner, and leads the runs every week.
While we’ve suffered through a few decades of soulless, identikit chain stores harvesting every possible corner of our lives, the ethos of small businesses are extensions of an individual’s personality and vision. If running is also a major part of those people’s lives, a run club from that business suddenly makes much more sense, doesn’t it?
That’s the case with 3ixteen, an owner-operated endeavor. Growing up, Andrew was overweight, and had “a negative association with running.” He even made fun of people who were running, preferring to chase a ball, but that all changed two short years ago when his boxing gym closed. He just wanted something to help him keep active, so he signed up for the Queens 10k.
“That was an unfathomable goal for me. That first mile… your body's like ‘Why are we doing this again?’ I never went past that.”
But he did go past that. He talks about enjoying hitting that point on every run where your body eases into it now. Once he felt comfortable enough that he wouldn’t “be the person that everybody's waiting for,” Andrew started running with World’s Fair Run Crew in Queens.
“It’s a nice checkpoint for me every week. I can go and see people, and the rest of the week, I'll run by myself. I made new friends at the age of 44!”
For Andrew, the logical next steps were twofold:
Show his new friends what he makes when he’s not running with them
Find a way to build his newfound love into his company
A comfortable expansion
It’s natural for a running store to host a run club, isn’t it, but what if your local Fleet Feet or Adidas store had a potted plants workshop? A bit weird. A menswear brand based in New York, though? No such limitations. It makes sense that their customer base would want plants to thrive in their apartment.
It’s just less risky for a company to build a new, secondary strand of its business than it would be for a brand new company to build the same thing as their primary business.
The run club series itself got a springboard from that existing base of customers, as well as Andrew’s regular run crew supporting him – that support is what we talk about when we talk about community. When you add his relationships with companies like Saucony and Huckberry, which helped provide the people who showed up to the Summer Series with samples and the such, it was the perfect cocktail.
“New York City's crazy right now. There are plenty of places to go to run, and hang out. I think partnering with the people that I run with helped bring some legitimacy to it.”
Such was the success that there were even people in attendance from outside of those circles. They successfully cut through the noise. It’s difficult to do that anywhere, let alone in New York — the capital of running culture — but it allowed them to continue to build.
When 3sixteen developed a small range of outdoor apparel, a mix of running tees, shorts, and trail tops, it was a safe gamble, but a gamble nonetheless. A toe dipped into the activewear space.
“It wasn't guaranteed to work. We had the flexibility to do it, but we were like, ‘Is anybody gonna care about stuff that we make? Or are they gonna tell us to just stick to jeans?’ The only reason I can think that people would buy something from us, is because they like the brand. So that is a competitive advantage.”
“They trusted us to make something that would function as it should for its intended purpose. They trusted us to put together good events, good people. and to take care of them. That's something that I really try not to take for granted because it's hard for anybody to notice anything these days. But this thing here – this part of the brand – can move at whatever pace it needs to move at.”
The lost art of hospitality
Andrew tells me about how important hospitality is to him. How he wanted 3sixteen to be high-quality, but not intimidating or inaccessible. He understands how customers might wait years to visit one of his shops, and others might happen upon the store while walking down the street. That they’re both welcomed equally warmly is of paramount importance to him.
That level of thought about the 3sixteen customer is what led to them turning half the showroom into a coffee shop for a month, where they highlighted six of their favorite coffee roasters, quarterly evenings of analog music and conversation, and now a series of runs.
“We try to do things to help our community feel like they're a part of something bigger than just coming in, asking for a size, giving us their credit card. It's very transactional. We need transactions to survive, of course, but for us, it’s a lot more than that. I think we've been able to create something where a lot of our customers feel like, ‘I don't just get my jeans or a nice fall shirt from them. I share interests with them.’”
It’s that idea of a physical space being a community hub again, isn’t it. I’ve previously written about how run clubs themselves can provide the service of being a third space, away from home and work, but when businesses embed themselves purposefully into a community like this, there is value for all.
Sure, the bond with the customer is strengthened to the point that a menswear brand known more for its jean and chore coats can sell a pair of running shorts to its existing customer base, but those customers, with an extra point of connection, feel a heightened sense of belonging as well.
In 2024, running has become just another thing that the modern renaissance man does. Running is the latest item to embed itself into mainstream culture, and for many it’s become an essential facet of life, right up there with a great pair of jeans or the perfect cup of coffee.
What’s going to be the next part of non-running culture that adopts running? We’ll find that out together.
Links & further reading
This is
’s original post about how he cross-pollinated his passions of running and fashion, over on his Vices newsletter.
A trio of stories I wrote about a running store that leans into community, how running culture is bleeding into fashion culture, and how a run club can be a third social space.
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I’ve never understood the idea of people feeling part of a community around a brand (commerce). But here is Andrew setting an example of bringing his sense of hospitality, shared interests and skill at building connection with others to his boutique and it makes sense. Love it!
As a separate question, track and field has always had steady popularity as far as I know for teen sports, but has the popularity of longer run clubs filtered down to making cross-country more popular for high school kids, too? It was my true sports love, but definitely fringe and hard to get kids to sign up when I was a teenager in the 90s.
What's the next part of non-running culture that adopts running? That is a great question.
I think about the things that I'm interested in: TV Shows, Movies, Baseball, Business and Finance, Coffee and Pizza.
Any one of those things could connect me to running but a run that goes through various areas that a TV show or movie was filmed in would be cool.
For example, let's bring up Bosch (again!) and there are areas that they filmed in that could be a connect the dots of runs. You get to see those spaces, run, then chat with fans of the show.