2026 Paris Fashion Week Running Report
Who Ran Away With (Men's) Paris Fashion Week 2026, Trends, and Highlights including adidas x SATISFY, more Zono truckers, New Balance x CAYL, On's indoor trail, and Brooks latest collab.
I was not at Paris Fashion Week this year (again). Last time I said I’d make it, and hopefully I can make it work next time! Luckily I had some friends going, a chock-full social media feed, and key intel from the likes of Katherine Douglas who stopped in showrooms scope out stuff for her store, Running Wylder.
The dominant trend amongst my favorite brands this year was running apparel that works beyond the run. More people identify as runners now. They want to dress the part, but they also want clothes that look good at the coffee shop after. Or even just to the coffee shop, hold the run. Wearing your hobby with running never used to be cool; walking around in a blue tech tee with jeans and bright trainers might identify you as a runner but simply does not look good. Increasingly, you can wear the same stuff you run in and look good in any context.
Keep on below for the full teardown.
Dear reader, this is wicked long and can’t be fully read in your inbox. Tap the “Read in app” or view it on the website.
A few points about Paris Fashion Week first.
Paris Fashion Week Is Not Just One Week
It takes place four times a year, with two editions of Womenswear (Spring/Summer in September and Fall/Winter in March) and two editions of Menswear (Fall/Winter in January and Spring/Summer in June).
This one was Men’s Fall/Winter 2026 PFW. It’s namely showrooms, events, parties, and limited runway shows. It’s not the glitzy glam you normally think about, though there is some of that from the luxury brands like Amiri, Commes Des Garconnes, KidSuper, Dior, and Hermes.
While it might hit your social media feed, live streamed catwalks, Tiktok reaction vids, Youtube summaries, trending topics on Twitter, nor a litany of articles from Elle, Vogue, or Them. In fact, men’s fashion magazine GQ barely covered PFW as of writing this, Global Fashion Correspondant Sam Hine covered some of it in his “Show Notes” newsletter.
Why Are Running Brands at Paris Fashion Week?
Fitness culture journalist Grace Cook asked the same question (below) and answered it thoroughly arriving on a very different conclusion having been formerly a fashion journalist and actually attending it. “Why are running brands at Paris Fashion Week,” and why only during men’s week?
Here were my assumptions on why folks show up:
Cultural relevance: boutique menswear stores like Ven Space, Departemento, Of The Lion or bigger luxury stores like Mr. Porter, Dover Street Market, and Slam Jam Socialism aren’t going to find your brand if you aren’t at PFW. You’re signaling that you care about fashion, and should be part of the conversation.
Niche competition: Those same stores are not sending buyers to TRE. If you are only at TRE, you’re competing at running with other running brands. If you’re at PFW, you’re competing at running with fashion brands.
The right crowd: men’s week has a history of streetwear and GORP. Trail and running can easily fold in. All of the sportsstyle shoes are rooted in running.
Less spectacle: It’s not couture week, there’s lower energy. Getting invites isn’t a competition nor rite of passage for media. Less hype, less demand, less status. Easier to get the people there to show up to your events.
Easier to get to for brands: A number of brands at TRE had issues getting samples through customs. San Antonio was hard enough for me to get to, let alone the folks from Kaleg (South Korea) or Klattermussen (Sweden).
There are more men’s challenger brands: on the women’s side, we unfortunately don’t have as many emerging fashion-forward brands that would fit here. Pruzan and Literary Sport would be the two that come to mind
The feeling I got about Men’s PFW is that its not nearly as much of a spectacle as Couture Week, nor the women’s fashion weeks. At Couture Week, people are begging for show invites and trying to sneak in. That wasn’t the case for many of these showrooms. From a fashion industry source, I was told it’s less hectic: showroom leases, hotels, and flights are cheaper, the calendar is a bit emptier.
This was pretty far off from what Grace concluded. PFW is acting as another trade show, focused on international buyers. I got some perspective from a brand there and was able to talk to Ross from Norda about this. I asked why Norda attends Paris Fashion Week, and why during men’s week. He said the reason was two-fold:
The first is a standard business reason, namely that it’s one of the year’s best opportunities to see your global network of distributors and retailers — North America, Europe, Asia, etc. — in one place. Events like that don’t come around often. Timing-wise, it’s ideal as well, since this is the time of year when retailers and wholesalers are looking to make their fall/winter buys.
Seems like men’s ready-to-wear week happens to be the right timing. Between TRE and PFW, you can lock up a year’s worth of orders for both the US and the rest of the world.
It’s becoming a big event on the “cultural calendar,”…from a business and brand equity perspective it’s certainly up there in importance.
You need to consistently show up to these events to build and maintain brand equity.
So my assumptions were very much off base on the primary reasons here, cultural relevance is secondary to the commerce part. Makes sense!
Trends at Paris Fashion Week
Fresh Prints: Camo, Animal, and Re (Print)
Same trend from my PFW 2025 list. For fall and winter, its hardly surprising to see more animal prints, plaids, and herringbones.
Camo is always in but rarely in the running world. Same with animal prints, though adidas just busted that out on some EVO SLs. We’re going to see some more fun prints this year as previewed below by Alex Zono and Literary Sport. SATISFY already showed their new prints at TRE as did SOAR. Merrell, Keen, Saucony, and HOKA all have footwear coming in a variety of animal prints. SOAR also teased some herringbone, and all-over reprints of vintage clothes (named “Artefact”) on their ultralight singlets and tees.
Run-To-Cafe Ready
Brands at PFW were focusing more on what looks good on the train to work, stopping by for groceries, or hanging out at the cafe after your run. That was a key point for both SOAR, Unna, and Alex Zono. If you aren’t looking for pure performance like when you’re ripping a workout from the track, or a race, chances are you might be wearing your running clothes for more than just running. That’s a safe bet. All my best running gear I’m wearing in the winter to stay warm, and in the summer to stay cool anyway regardless of if I’m running or not.
If you trust a brand for enough for one thing, and they align with your style, you might find that you like their more lifestyle inspired (or truly lifestyle) apparel too.
With SOAR, Tim went beyond cafe ready, branching into actual clothing. Literary Sport is already most of the way there, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see them put out Row-tier wool slacks. Tracksmith (not at PFW) already experimented there, and I could easily see them putting out Oxford button ups and khakis a la Ralph Lauren with their signature locker loop on the back. SATISFY is doing a full line of technical outerwear. While I don’t see it any time soon, I imagine fans of would gladly shell out for some cooked 501s again, vintage-inspired western belts, and Re-Possessed™ HBARC shirts1.
Open Door Policy
Seems like most of the brands were far from invite only, and welcomed anyone in Paris to stop by their showroom. They want the social media exposure! There were still plenty of private events for specific things, but PFW is a lot more open than a traditional trade show. The folks at Portal were happy to let in a friend of mine to check out their showroom.
Most of what’s on show for running brands hit the Instagram influencer sphere.
We’re Still Trapped In GORP World
And I don’t hate it. But I’m excited for the likes of what Tim Soar, Alex Zono, and Unna are putting out. Sleek multi modal technical apparel doesn’t all need to look utilitarian or dystopian and varying shades of woodland browns. It can also be cute, fun, and colorful. Hell, even SATISFY has some lemon yellow stuff coming out these days. Most of the trail adjacent brands at PFW though were not flexing bright colors to lighten up our gray winters. Shout out Keen and Merrell for mixing it up a bit on the color.
Brands of Note
Gnorda: Gnuhr x Norda
A ton of buzz about this brand collab, and Gnuhr’s third ever. This was by far the largest collab though, both in its marketing and release at their PFW event. The collab makes a lot of sense, both brands capitalize how they use on high tech, name brand materials in innovative ways. Everyone has access to the stuff their using, yet nobody is quite doing it like them.
The capsule will be 10 pieces in total, including a gnorda 002, their popular trail shoe, and a unique take on the existing gnuhr line. Some of my standouts
Warp T-tank: tearaway warp-knit shirt made with perforated nylon. Make it into a tee, tank, crop, whatever.
Warp Cargo Legging: built in storage on your leggings, soft warp knit.
Alien Throne Tubular T: Single stitch tee that’s been hand-distressed and hand-repaired.
Full gnorda collection releasing via Norda and gnuhr January 29 at 12:00 EST.
SATISFY (and adidas???)
SATISFY has a lot of work to do this year to 10x their growth. It means expanding their product line, moving into more stores, and even doing a partnership with mainstream athletic titan adidas. That one wasn’t on my bingo card but makes sense considering their goals this year. More people need to know what the brand is, especially folks visiting the Fleet Feet in Wooster, Ohio. The adidas collab will give them a globally distributed collab on a massive website and I can imagine there will be a shoe (EVO SL GTX?) and a full line of apparel similar to what adidas did with Hermanos Koumori.
On the product side, SATISFY is focusing on building out the rest of their technical line rivaling the offerings from ROA, Goldwin, CAYL, and the other GORP-y menswear brands. Insulated jackets, hearty shells, and much of the stuff already shared at TRE. They did debut a sweet silver colorway of TheROCKER though.
Also, LOTTA new Western Americana graphic tees.
Unna
Repeating what I said last time word for word:
UNNA added more lifestyle adjacent wear including their new colors for their hero piece, the technical striped long sleeve (a la St. James). They’re also adding a more lifestyle looking collared work jacket and quarter zip polo.
They also appear to have an Osprey vest collab coming that is a DIY style hand drawn kit which I adore. Very cute!
Alex Zono “Dance Like A Runner”
Doubling down on the graphics and cheeky slogans, as well as a full line of hats including a safari flap hat and bucket hat. Super stoked on the new trucker hats, and bright blue long sleeve button up. In a video from Runners Mood, he described the main inspo was “running down the street and getting your kite in the air,” and noted the silhouettes should really work for running, but doesn’t feel weird to wear every day.
The color palette leans very warm, super bold, and always fun.
Brooks Running
Brooks was not on my list from the 2025 PFW (though they did go), and that’s changed now that they’re making a bigger push into lifestyle and its overlap with performance running. The brand showed off their latest lifestyle footwear, namely a couple of Jeff Staple collabs as well as a preview of new Brooks Elite prototypes for 2027. Their private party pulled some friends and collaborators like Alex Zono, Sid of PYNRS, and the man of the hour, Jeff Staple.
Brooks will release another Jeff Staple Cascadia 1, their lifestyle throwback shoe, as well as a Ghost Trail, their first ever actual true running shoe with Staple. Still most excited about the Cascadia Elite, their upcoming trail racing shoe, and this gator leather Vanguard(?), a remake of their 1970s runner.
SOAR
Amazing patterns, with garment printing giving them all a unique creased texture. We saw plenty of this from the PFW 2025 fashion week. Notably there’s a lot of lifestyle wear from SOAR. Leather pants and jackets, frilled tuxedo shirts, denim sets, herringbone shorts, and technical pants and jackets ready for your work commute.
This is the first time they’ve done a full collection, and by the looks of it, it was significantly more than they had at TRE (production timelines). They displayed a full collection of the two aspects of SOAR: luxury lifestyle and pure performance.
Highlights for me are certainly the leather, but also this zip up tux shirt, all leopard print, the Polartec Alpha lined white bomber. I’m perhaps the most stoked on the vintage reprint of a button-up (!!) bowling shirt.
District Vision (and New Balance)
DV showed off some new sunglasses silhouettes but I actually saw very little of it shared to Instagram. Here’s what I did catch. Some wild looking waffle merino-wool half tights, and a fall collab with New Balance including some simple knit gloves with watch window. Seems like they’re tapping into some performance and natural fiber blends.
Portal
Thus multi-modal technical brand founded by industry veterans showed off a broader run and bike line, debyting new tights with cordura reinforced pockets (much like the seat of their bib shorts), a chest rigged jacket to hold bottles, tie-dye merino, and a new (maybe octa?) knit cycling jersey. Looks like their trail vest is further along as well, which they showed at PFW25.
On Showroom and PAF
Incredible showroom from On, recreating a woodland scene which they wove their trail ready showroom racks into. On’s looking absolutely futuristic with their PAF collab. Excited to see that all come out – the apparel is usually a highlight for me. Overall an absolutely insane showroom design.
New Balance x CAYL
A very niche collab for them, which hopefully makes it outside the SEA market and to the US. CAYL is a Korean technical + trail brand that I’ve highlighted a couple times in the newsletter. The diversity of their collabs shows that NB is on the pulse with what’s cool. Their team has worked with smaller outfits like District Vision (for years), Paper Boy Paris, and CAYL (since 2023) which is pretty neat.
Keen
The trail running side is just getting going with the Seek (trail) and Roam (gravel) that both debuted this past year and were reviewed pretty well. Their lifestyle colorways are excellent and I hope to see more of that translate to the running side, which still looks more traditional. Based on what I see below, it looks like that will soon be the case at least for muted palettes. I’d love to see the same style of colorblocking they use on their Jasper line.
Literary Sport
Literary Sport, The Row of running, was on outskirts of Paris so I didn’t have many friends that stopped by. Luckily their team shared a few looks on IG. They showed off a very blue line with a punchy electrified blue on a technical button up and singlet, paired with a subtler Black Watch tartan plaid on trackj pants, shorts, and a crisp windbreaker. I always love how these are simply styled, showing off their entire line in a way that doesn’t feel like its exclusively LS. The button up also seems to come in white, which I may need for the summer. Perhaps the most run-to-cafe ready, perhaps run-to-Balthazar ready.
Raide Research Expanding Their Trail Line
Despite starting as a engineering-led alpine and backcountry ski brand, they realized they could use their same methodology to help other athletes on the mountain. Raide Research made a huge splash at 2025 TRE, introducing their no-bounce trail waist pack. They’ve since made a very popular belted short and look to be developing some technical tees, trail running packs, and an ultralight shell.
Pas Normal (and Salomon)
PAS comes in with some more lifestyle wear, fleeces, etc. This time no corny slogans, just some nice palettes. The GoreTex Salomon’s look amazing and remind me of the pull-tie Pegasus Plus from Nike Gyakusou.
That’s as much as I could muster. Let me know your critiques if you went, or your thoughts if you didn’t! Leave a comment here or send me an email at contact@running.supply.
For Later
Check out my bit on 3rd and 4th wave running stores, which features a list of the best running stores in the world. Indie Running Stores
If you’re looking to shop for any of this cool gear, check out my running store finder which let’s you filter by brand to see the nearest store.
Supply Run is a series of casual interviews with industry professionals. Anyone from runners to store owners to founders.
Running Supply’s archive of the some of best designed running gear
Want to work with me or just chat?
Reply to this email in your inbox, or drop me an email.
Got press kits from your brand? Email contact@running.supply
Free idea.
I don't think I realized the difference between Paris Fashion Week (men's and women's) and couture week. Realizing PFW is more business and less retail makes everything make a lot more sense
Okay loving those leather brooks! Did not expect to see those. Great recap!