BORN TO RUN

By focusing solely on the needs of serious but non-professional runners, the American sportswear brand Tracksmith has chosen a narrow track – but one along which many people stride. The Journal meets its co-founder, Matt Taylor

Words: Clare Finney

I didn’t intend to interview Matt Taylor in running kit. I certainly didn’t intend to interview him in kit that comes from a combination of almost every sportswear brand other than his own. But I’d been for my regular morning run, come back to a prolonged interaction with a BT engineer, and then found myself with no time to shower and change. Well, I thought as I grabbed my coat and flew out the door, if anyone is going to look kindly on someone meeting them in their running gear, it is surely Matt: a lifelong runner and former head of ‘running category marketing’ at Puma who eight years ago founded Tracksmith, the ‘pure’ running brand that, after garnering a cult following in the United States, has recently opened its first international store in Marylebone.

The brand was born in Boston, Massachusetts: Matt’s home city, and the location of the Boston Marathon, an event so beloved by its citizens they’ve made the race day a public holiday. Tracksmith is as lean, thoughtful and laser-focused in its mission as its founder is in person: to design clothing specifically for non-professional yet competitive runners, who run for the pure joy of running as much as they do for the more mundane benefits of regular exercise.

It’s not for elite athletes. Nor is it for couch-to5K-ers, or people who hate running but do it because they don’t want to shell out for gym membership. It’s for people who are not making their living from running, but who do have to run in order to feel alive. These people – and I am one, so feel entitled to write freely – can be fanatical to the point of evangelism about the power of running outdoors to transform your immediate mood and your long-term mentality. “It’s so cliched to say: ‘for runners, by runners’ –but we live and breathe running every day,” Matt explains over coffee. “We identify with running more strongly than someone who goes out for a run now and then. We speak to people who have gone past that stage, who from a mindset perspective would say: ‘Yeah, I’m a runner,’ as opposed to being someone who runs.”

Once you self-identify as a runner, you tend to feel a deeper connection to the sport, Matt continues – even if you don’t run particularly fast or for particularly long distances. You might look for clubs, compete in marathons, or seek out films or podcasts about running. That’s why, as well as producing running kit, Tracksmith offers community in the form of twice-weekly runs, in-store events, and short films and stories exploring runners and running culture online. As with the kit, the focus of these is not professional athletes, but committed runners with interesting stories about the endurance, elation and emotional turbulence encapsulated by running.

Unlike most sportswear brands, Tracksmith eschews the idea of sponsoring professional athletes too, in favour of supporting aspiring amateurs, or runners with artistic ambitions. Their most famous collaborator is Malcolm Gladwell, the beloved Canadian intellectual and author. Having been spotted running in Tracksmith gear in New York, the brand invited him to do their first TV commercial and then their podcast, Speed City, telling the previously little-known story of two African American sprinters, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, bowing their heads and raising their fists on the podium at the 1968 Olympic Games in an antiracist protest.

Like Sweaty Betty, the activewear brand that has worked wonders for getting more women into sport, Tracksmith aims to be accessible; yet their approach to accessibility is noticeably different. They do not seek to straddle the gap between

“All the running brands were either going for athletes on the Olympic podium, or the ‘get off the couch’ crowd. And left in the middle were millions of committed runners.” sportswear and fashion, nor are they interested in designing for other activities. Where Sweaty Betty and similar brands blur the boundaries between leisurewear and sportswear, tapping into trends and designing for everything from swimming to dancing, skiing and sleeping, Tracksmith has stuck resolutely to its running lane. Of course, diversifying has its merits, as the success of his competitors proves; but when Matt established Tracksmith eight years ago that general drift towards diversification had left a gap in the market. “What happened in running 10 to 15 years ago is that all the running brands were either going for athletes on the Olympic podium, or the ‘get off the couch’ health-and-wellness crowd. And left in the middle were millions of committed runners,” he explains. These were runners who will never be professional, but wanted specialised, quality kit. “Those brands are so big. They’re involved in so many different sports. It’s not that they’re not focused, but if you’re a runner, they’re not focused enough on running. They’re under pressure to focus on different things.”

Tracksmith’s approach is more like that of Patagonia, says Matt. “I hope that Tracksmith is a running brand, and only a running brand, forever. Patagonia have been able to walk that fine line of being able to grow and expand their now billion-dollar business, while staying really true to the original vision of the brand decades after the founding.”

This purist approach takes longer, he acknowledges. “It’s much easier to chase trends.” But in running, Tracksmith has a sport that is by definition accessible. The investment required is minimal, as are the restraints imposed by location and geography, and the timing is flexible. You can run almost anywhere, almost any time. Legs and motivation are the only requirement. “Together with football, running is the only sport that is truly global, open to people on every continent,” says Matt – and it’s unusually egalitarian, too. “We all start on a starting line, however long the run is.”

Nevertheless, clothes can still be a barrier to entry. Not at first, when any t-shirt will do, but for longer, tougher runs which demand more of you, and more of your kit by extension. I could spend 1,000 words just discussing the problem of pockets, for example – and Matt and I do, for a long time. “Here at Tracksmith, we talk about pockets more than any other brand, I assure you,” he laughs when I raise the issue. “There’s a lot of internal debate about this. It’s hard because – well, not so long ago we didn’t run with phones at all, and now everyone does.

Ready to run Tracksmith’s permanent store at 25 Chiltern Street will be arriving in late March. In the meantime the brand’s pop-up shop is open just a few strides away at 2 Chiltern Street.

“We speak to people who from a mindset perspective would say: ‘Yeah, I’m a runner,’ as opposed to being someone who runs.”

But the size of phones keeps changing. They get bigger, and then they don’t fit, so then brands are designing for technology that changes every year,” he sighs – and that’s before you’ve factored in energy gels and house keys.

Tracksmith’s approach is to be “as specific as possible for the intended use. If it’s a short race, we’re going to focus on gel storage. If we’re designing a training short, we’ll focus on where your phone is going to go, if you need a phone. We’re not putting tonnes of pockets in everything. I know people love pockets, but it dilutes the use of the product,” he explains. I suddenly feel very conscious of the four pockets in my running leggings, filled – at that moment – with phone, bank cards, keys and bike lights. The problem with pockets is that it’s so easy to fill them.

But pockets are not Tracksmith’s USP. The main point of difference is the materials and the design which, together with the brand’s purity of focus, promise durability. “I think there are a couple of things that make our approach unique. One is certainly the product itself – we aim for a really high level of quality. We really have invested in the raw materials and we use the highest quality fabrics. We use a lot of merino, and we use a lot of really technical fabrics out of Switzerland and Italy.” Unlike many brands you could name, Tracksmith’s marketers lay no claim to these fabrics; nor do they make their technicality explicit. “Innovation on the material side actually doesn’t happen at the brand level, it happens at the textile mill level. They’re the ones in the labs, creating new ideas, and that’s why we work with some of the most innovative and technical fabric mills,” he says. Tracksmith’s Bislett long-legged pants, for example, are made from “one of the most technical fabrics that’s being used in running… but it just looks like a pair of pants. It’s an incredible experience to run in.”

Like many of us, Tracksmith is conscious of its responsibilities toward the environment – particularly as creators of activewear, one of the fastest of all fast fashions. Setting up Tracksmith eight years ago, Matt was “at a point in my life where I looked carefully at everything else that I was buying and consuming, especially on the clothing side, and felt such a disconnect between my running stuff and then everything else. For most of my running career to that point, nothing had been very durable. You’d get tops at races or at your local running store, you’d wear them once and have to throw them in the washer” – then in the bin, after they fell apart from the constant washing. “But if you use materials that don’t stink, you can wear the same top multiple times a week, without washing,” he points out. “That product is going to last you five years or more, and while it may be a little bit more expensive upfront, that’s better than going through three or four versions of something else.”

“The real innovation right now is happening on the sustainability side. That is happening in mills, with recycled fabrics and so on,” says Matt – but design is also key to sustainability. “We have a much more understated, classic look. When we launched eight years ago, everything in running was very bright and sort of futuristic. That has changed now,” he says – yet Tracksmith’s more timeless styles and colours have remained.

Reflecting on this and all Matt has said, Tracksmith’s location on Chiltern Street feels somewhat inevitable. Not only is Marylebone halfway between the best royal parks in London, but it’s also renowned for its many independent, specialist stores. “This street specifically has all independent brands, with a high level of attention to detail and craftsmanship – and of course it has good running access,” Matt says. He and his family have relocated to St John’s Wood to oversee the new opening, and Matt has spent every morning since moving here exploring Hampstead Heath, Hyde Park and Regent’s Park. “My son goes to school like a half mile from here, down York Street, so I drop him off in the mornings, then run down into Hyde Park, come up here, get into Regent’s Park, and then go home. So I get to hit both,” he says. “City running can be tough, but there’s some beautiful running in London.”

His enthusiasm is infectious. Looking down at my kit, lightly mud-spattered from this morning’s run, I’m almost tempted to start running again.

TRACKSMITH

25 Chiltern Street, W1U 7PW tracksmith.com