Hi strangers! Since the year clicked over from 25 to 26 I’ve been busy with three different shoots, a consulting project on collab strategy and a Burrito League segment here in Boulder. Pair that with digesting the downfall of our democracy and it’s been quite a month!
A couple weeks back, I shot with Oregon track stand-out Simeon Birnbaum for Diadora and their new NIL partnership. I’m proud of the way these images capture many aspects of his life - running and otherwise. Did you know he was also All-State in Jazz Band? Watch out for Diadora.
I also launched the Timeless Hoodie for Auteur Sportif. It’s a 100% cotton, classic hoodie that is the counter point to so much trend-driven apparel in running.
What is more timeless than a vintage vinyl shop? We know runners have other interests in culture and the arts so I went vinyl shopping with Noah Droddy and rising marathon talent Stephen Jones. Learn more about them and endure endless comical banter in the BTS film.
He wasn’t sure how much he could talk about it or if I could write anything without getting someone in trouble. As TRE was wrapping up, Jeff Metzdorff (Mill City) and I were recapping our thoughts over a beer and he mentioned their shop’s participation in a collab with On alongside a heavy-hitting group of other run specialty retailers from around the world. They are designing product as a collective and the project is called LN1 (Lane 1). Fascinating . . . how could I learn more?
Jeff sent a text to the brains of the project, Max Smith. Max has been with On for 13 years, rising from an account manager in the Northeast to become the current Global Head of Commercial Strategy for Partnerships. Max agreed to jump on the phone and fill me in.
In 2019 Max moved away from performance running at On to help develop PAD (Performance All Day) - On’s lifestyle business. He’d later move again to help build Special Projects alongside JP Lalonde who came from Salomon, Samuel Del Pilar formerly of Converse Energy and Julia Seiter who heads product strategy for On Special Projects. Together they’re responsible for the top collabs at On over the past few years. As Max puts it he’s “now activating the best experience for On’s pinnacle partners across wholesale and brand.” He loves the role because it allows him to blend both creative chops and community impact but his heart still belongs with performance running and he’s always looking for ways to keep that connection.
The LN1 story originated with On’s work alongside Distance in Paris back in 2023. They were learning and testing. On’s Special Projects group would then collab with Post Archive Faction (PAF) and Loewe in much discussed projects. The project that really stuck, however, was the Pleasures x The Loop collab. While in Athens, Greece on vacation, Max spotted the marketing for that collab taking up an entire exterior wall at the Ministry of Concrete and it hit him how much impact a run shop in Austin was having halfway around the world in Greece. He could feel the gravity around this new wave of running shops. Something magical was happening.
"What is happening now in running is what happened in lifestyle 20 years ago, 25 years ago, with CNCPTS, Bodega, Extra Butter and all these stores, like Colette in Paris."
Max feels there is an equal amount of creativity in running, if not MORE, as there was in lifestyle during the streetwear era of the 2000s. Given the way the streetwear brands supported the streetwear community back then, he wanted to see On do more to support the running community. Shops around the world like Metta, Distance, Runlimited and Mill City are doing incredible things but for On to do projects with each of them individually would take 10+ years.
“Running is an endless source of creativity and a chance to calm the mind.”
At the same time, Max was getting to know a unique creative named Gabrielle Casaccia at Slam Jam, a streetwear retailer in Milan. Max and Gabri first met during a casual run where Gabri ripped out of the gate at 6:30/mi pace and didn’t stop for 8 miles. Gabri would go on to start a media outlet and creative hub that I’ve been asked not to name.
"At first I was like, fuck, you guys are nuts, but then you get it and you're like, oh, no, you aren’t. They say it's a ‘vibe’, and you're like, fucking vibes are essential. You need vibes."
As Max tells it, Gabri describes [X creative hub] as a “vibe” and communicated it through a bunch of 90s mood boards. Max wanted to incorporate Gabri and the vibe of [creative hub] into the LN1 project as a creative consultant to bring a similar vibe and energy.
"Lane 1 is not for jogging"
The signs always say lane 1 is not for jogging. If someone is blocking lane 1, you scream “track” and they get the hell out of the way. On product lead Alaina Alvarez eventually came up with the name and it stuck.
Max says LN1 is not for everyone. It’s not about getting everyone into running or an “any pace is fine” mentality. On speaks to that angle with campaigns like “Soft Wins” with Elmo. LN1 is about people REALLY going for it - high performance and max effort. At the same time it’s also not about racing either. On already has really great racing product. LN1 is about training hard with product designed from the ground up. This FW26 collection will be head-to-toe, incorporating the new Cloudrunner Max, a perfect go-to tee, a new half tight with an inner liner and a XC spike specifically for training. Then in 2027 and 2028 the product will go even harder with no compromises on materials. Stay tuned. Creatively it’s a blank canvas that he’s hoping can be a form of self expression for that kid ripping 10 mile tempos or quarter repeats.
“I want to tell stories about people just fucking murdering themselves on the track or ripping their legs up, getting spiked in indoor races and puking afterwards. I want to see that shit. That shit inspires me personally.”
There’s a similarity between that all out training or goal pursuit and what these retail brands are doing. Success in each of these shops involves so much self sacrifice and highs and lows. Like athletes, these shop owners are building toward something that may or may not even happen. They’re all-in for the love of the game. They are taking on a ton of risk and putting it all out there. You can’t separate the store and the people, it’s a part of them. According to Max, why not treat these retailers like athletes with the same mentality?
The retailer group includes goodrunner (Seoul), Up There Athletics (Melbourne), The Exchange, Runlimited, Distance, The Loop, Mill City, Metta, Renegade, Achilles Heel (Glasgow) and Run As You Are (Vancouver). Over time Max expects this group to change and evolve. For now they’ve been selected based on three elements: a cool retail experience, a community piece and a relevant brand.
"Inclusion in the group is really contingent on not just being a cool running store... What is more interesting is not just the fact that they're starting to create a brand that can transcend the store. Like you're a cool store but you've also been able to really create a community and you're very much purpose driven."
While the project is very much shared amongst all the stores and is intended to be a platform for their collective commonalities, there is the opportunity to involve outside designers to collaborate with the group. Max’s hope is that it isn’t just a place for big collabs with the obvious LVMH brands or Kith. If LN1 can become a platform for emerging designers it would be amazing to give others a carte blanche to create and let them run with it.
[Creative hub] will curate a global campaign for the launch of LN1. The way each retail partner interprets the concept might be slightly different so look for the campaign to be a compilation of their individual stories. Eventually athletes will be integrated into the storytelling as well.
It’s ultimately a celebration of the people who are laying it out on the line and going hard. The goal is to raise up this community of running retailers and to let them know that On has their back.
Max fully expects others like Nike to copy the idea but if that raises the tide across the sport then so be it. Even if LN1 somehow went away someday, if the LN1 group can continue to be hyper connected it raise the tide for the entire sport. These relationships and this community can have an everlasting impact.
For the consumer, I see a direct line from the world at The Running Event to the world at Paris Fashion Week. What does it look like when these two worlds collide? What if you could train in truly high performance running gear designed with a streetwear angle? What if a young Virgil Abloh took a shot at high performance running product alongside top run specialty shops? With the current cultural excitement around running there certainly seems to be a runway for this to land.
For run specialty shops, this starts to position them at ground zero of a performance/streetwear collision. The LN1 collection, and others like it, certainly won’t be found at Dicks. Do run shops need to pick a lane in the future or can they ride the fence as a credible performance shop that also brings the style? Much of traditional run specialty certainly isn’t a booming business as it stands. Is this evolution necessary for survival? In reality, much of any shop’s existing business already comes from people looking for an everyday shoe. I don’t see why run shops need to be so bashful about that. But if you’re going to the bakery for bread, you expect the artisan sourdough loaf - not the Wonder Bread.
For On I think they’ve had success at the racing level with top athletes/product in the marathon and on the track but they need to carve out more mindshare with the rest of us - the everyday runners. I still hear the brand called “On Cloud” in a run specialty setting where their Cloud 6 still sits on some run specialty walls and, let’s be honest, it has no business there. By aligning with the leaders in run specialty they gain credibility in that context. As an aspirational product line, LN1 has potential to hit with the majority of runners who want good product because they run often but don’t care about racing, carbon plates, etc. I also think LN1 continues to build On’s story within the lifestyle/collab/streetwear community. If The Loop can be a hit in Greece then LN1 is a slam dunk as a regional initiative with the potential for global resonance.
LN1 intrigued me because it’s the first time I’ve seen genuine aspiration to mix true performance running with this new fashion side of running. To most runners, “lifestyle” running has meant a compromised version of performance product with lip-service marketing about “performance specs” resulting in a category called “athleisure” because it doesn’t fit into either performance or fashion. Hence, the bad reputation. Aside from maybe the various EVO SL collabs, I’m not sure we’ve seen true performance running really mix with fashion. But, this group at On has set a bar with Loewe, Pleasures and PAF - no slouch fashion houses. If we mix that with a group of top run specialty shops and prompt them with the image of “people just fucking murdering themselves on the track, ripping their legs up, getting spiked in indoor races and puking afterwards”, I’m excited about what they might come up with.
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