High on life: finding the creative mindset with Minor Planet's Jason Levine
Minor Planet’s Jason Levine has one of the boldest young brands in the running world. Blending yoga, punk, and running, it’s left-field but clear in its intent.
Among the hundreds of brand pop-ups and events and shakeout runs at the 2025 NYC Marathon, I found Minor Planet. There had been record-breaking rainfall that day, but my plan was to watch the short film of German pro ultrarunner Mikey Kratzer, which was being presented by the brainchild of Jason Levine in conjunction with New Balance. I was 45 minutes early. It wasn’t enough time to hit another location but slightly too long to sit there alone. So I took a seat.
Jason broke from setting up the room to greet me enthusiastically with a fancy-looking soda. I was grateful for something to sip on. I asked him if he was with Minor Planet. He was.
“It’s interesting to take this athletic world, with all of its subcultures and colorful characters, and now you fuse that together. You have a nice recipe for an interesting life.” Jason Levine, Minor Planet
I’d kinda seen the brand knocking around on Instagram but hadn’t fully engaged. Messages of ‘Centre For Beginners,’ ‘Baby Steps,’ and ‘Let Go To Hold On.’ I was monitoring this brand that was dealing in the kind of spiritual sloganeering that I believe in. More recently there’s been ‘100% Runner,’ but we’ll get to that in due course.
In 2025, I somewhat moved my emphasis away from writing about the fashion side of running culture when Cole Townsend’s Running Supply arrived. When someone niches down on your niche so well, you simply sit back and enjoy it. Minor Planet, however, is doing something in the running space that no other brand is doing with such clarity. I had to dig in.
District Vision also has a meditation aspect, but is somewhat more esoteric, and Lululemon has moved from the yoga world into trying to conquer running. Younger brands like Schism, Furies, and Rose Endurance are bringing very specific hardcore punk aesthetics to the running world, and Satisfy is the punk band headlining Stade de France. Minor Planet sits in the middle of all of that without selling technical running performance apparel at all.
Of course, all clothing can be running apparel, but mostly I’ve seen Minor Planet popping up in Rome and London with yoga and breathwork events at the New Balance Marathon House with well-designed hats, cotton tees, and other accessories.
Rome’s marathon event was spent visualizing marathon moments in a 15th century papal hospital with grand, frescoed walls and London’s big events included qigong and tostadas plus pre-race body regulation in Somerset House, an equally grand Tudor palace. They’re the kind of places — and activities — that a young Jason Levine would’ve scoffed at and then tried to skate down the marble steps of.
While Minor Planet leans on the ideas of thinking more deeply, more slowly, and more purposefully, it really wasn’t like that for Jason until 15 years ago.
