Running hits the mainstream, but who's buying?
As Zara borrows the design language of boutique running brands, I ponder who actually cares about their Athleticz range, and who it's for. Plus: get some stickers!
Last week, Zara released their new Athleticz range, which included a lot of running apparel. It’s not strange for a lifestyle apparel company to design sportswear. I wrote about 3sixteen last year, and how the New York denim and men’s lifestyle brand’s move into high-end running gear fits the brand’s 360° ethos perfectly, for instance.
The uproar came as people noticed how the Spanish multinational has stolen (all of??) their designs from other brands, with British racing specialists Soar a big victim. It seemed like an unnecessary tactic from a fast fashion business that pulls in $29 billion in revenue.
The difference here is that at $30 for t-shirt, rather than $100, Zara’s gear is much more affordable than anything from 3Sixteen or Soar (who I wrote about in December). What Zara has done is not just stealing, but they’re also undercutting. It’s somewhat similar to what Nike did to Satisfy around the New Year, but it feels more blatant and insidious.
Can you believe that it’s not the first time that Zara has launched a running collection that’s ripped off upstart challenger brands? As outlined in an early edition of Runners Highest, in late 2022, they launched a trail running collection that aped Satisfy, District Vision, Soar, and Hoka.
Tim Soar, founder and creative director at Soar called Zara out directly on Linkedin, saying:
“Every designer is attuned to ideas or moods that are in the aether… What is important is how you apply your personality and aesthetic sensibly to your designs… What is lazy and a rip-off is taking someone else’s design language and applying it directly to your products.”
Having had my work from here stolen by a million-follower-strong content farm last week as well, I concur. Anyway.
I have a wide cross-section of friends and acquaintances in the running world, and I talked to them about the new Zara range. What I found so interesting is how each group had a completely different take on the matter.
Urban run club enthusiasts who regularly train for marathons and the vast majority of what they post on Instagram is running-related. They’ve already bought their Bandits and Satisfys, and laughed at the idea of running a marathon in Zara race shoes. They do not take Zara Athleticz seriously.
My existing friends either from school or from my music journalism days who have turned to running later in life. They do not take Zara Athleticz seriously, but would honestly wear any gear that does the job at the right price. Even Zara.
People from the running business who write about running, work at a brand, are running influencers, organize events, or are professional athletes. These are the people who pour their lives into making the running world what it is for the first two categories and they absolutely hated that a peer’s hard work could be trivialized like that from within the garment industry. They do not take Zara Athleticz seriously.
The big thing they had in common was that they all scoffed at running a marathon in a pair of Zara’s SEO-friendly-named Long-Distance Running Sneakers.
My enduring question throughout dissecting this release was: Who’s it for?
Who is going to Zara to buy cheap running gear when cheap Nike and Adidas gear already exists?
We have seen sports-specific offshoots of big brands like Athleta from the Gap/Old Navy parent company, and it’s decent enough gear. It’s like a budget Lululemon, but the Athleticz range lives within the Zara ecosystem alongside the everyday casualwear, workwear, and home goods.
Who exactly is spending $170 on Zara running shoes when a pair of tried, tested, and reliable Brooks Ghost costs $140? This is not at all what we mean when we describe Zara as “fast fashion.”
Maybe this is a reminder that there is a huge swath of people who run, and maybe don’t actually identify as runners, so are not even aware of any conversation around running culture hitting the mainstream. They just want to go for their before/after work run, and think nothing more about that run. Running is just something that they do, rather than being a key part of their personality. They have no idea what a heel-to-toe drop might be. They are not concerned with pronouncing Saucony correctly. They have never used a marathon tracker. They might not even know their weekly mileage.
Through that lens, picking up a smart-looking batch of running gear while they’re browsing for a new winter coat makes a little more sense.
Is Zara taking market share from the challenger brands? Or is Soar et al’s target demographic safe?
Last week on Running Sucks
After bitter start to 2025, I was finally able to publish my first long-read of the year, and what a cracker it is.
Aaron Garcia is one of the most exciting community leaders in the running world right now, and has built something truly brilliant with Keep Runnin’ Santa Ana over the past three years.
Aaron led team members from a 71% Latino neighborhood to a race in a city that was one of the first in the country to publicly embrace Donald Trump’s new laws and directives. Like I said: a bitter start to 2025.
It’s not a piece that was popular across the board, of course. While the piece got the highest first-day stats ever, it also led to the most people unsubscribing from this newsletter. I guess that’s the “keep politics out of running” crowd, but running is political. I am political.
Allow me to reintroduce myself for a moment:
I’m from London, born and raised, but I’ve lived in Los Angeles since 2014.
My parents emigrated from Bangladesh to the UK in the 1970s.
I was a music journalist in my 20s, writing for top titles such as the BBC, Metal Hammer, the Guardian, Kerrang!, and more.
My dad was a journalist in his younger days, and in 2021 was recognized by the Bangladeshi government for spreading awareness of the genocide that took place in the civil war leading up to Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.
I was already very civically-minded, but finding that nugget out somewhat strengthened my resolve to search out the stories and the inspiring people behind them that might help to make the world a little better. And here we are. Thanks for sticking around.
Talking of sticking around…
Last week, I posted my new stickers on Instagram and sent out a couple dozen envelopes. If you want your envelope of stickers, enter your address in this Google form, and I’ll send some out to you. And I’ll ship them worldwide! Just do me a favor and be like Katherine Douglas and Tyson Baker, and tag me in a photo when you get them.
A new Nike Running advertisement!
I wrote about Nike’s previous campaign about needing to hate running to love running (they even made a Running Sucks t-shirt <melting emoji>), and how it speaks to the extremes of running journeys. If you’re an elite, you are grinding so hard to get those final few per cent to create history, and if you’re a beginner, running is so difficult, but you feel (and love) the results, so it’s worth it.
For me, that reflects their range of running shoes. Elites wear Nike to break world records, and new runners go straight to the Pegasus first, because who doesn’t know Nike? I wonder if they’ll ever make shoes that appeal to the engaged enthusiast.
This new campaign followed yesterday’s Super Bowl ad, that gloriously focused on women. The running representative is Sha’Carri Richardson, of course.
But what about this new slogan?
You can’t win… So win. I can interpret that as women have so many obstacles and will never be given full credit for their achievements, so they may as well win, but when I have to spend time deciphering a slogan, I begin to think it isn’t that great.
Maybe it’s simply that Just Do It is still the gold standard. It’s perfect.
The number one thing that runners of all levels tell me is the most difficult part of a run? Getting out of the door and starting. You know what the best advice there is for that?
Just do it.
February is my birthday month
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Last year on Running Sucks
It’s been a year since I interviewed a millionaire about his plans to give consenting athletes the perfect cocktail of drugs to run as fast as their flesh prisons can take them.
Running Sucks Haiku of the Week
Marathons still count
Even if it’s not a race
Just go for a run
I’ve seen a few people talking online about what constitutes an achievement. A personal best over a certain distance doesn’t count if it’s a part of a bigger distance, for instance. You’re not a marathoner unless you’ve paid money to run it and you got a medal.
Nah. If you run regularly, you’re a runner. It’s really as simple as that. If you’ve trained your body to run a distance — whatever distance — take the records that you want to. If it makes you feel better, try and figure out if you ran your fastest 5k of the year, for instance. Your life won’t change much in any material way one way or the other.
Just enjoy it.
Housekeeping
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Thanks for reading
- Raz
I always think running is good for everyone - and getting more people into running is a good thing. So nice looking running stuff on a budget can help a lot of folks gear up. Having said that! Ripping off smaller brands is pretty nasty work! The Trail running line from Zara was especially egregious. I don't get it, the fast fashion giants have near unlimited resources to make amazing things, but choose this violence against creators instead. So yeah I'm of two minds about this haha.