Running isn’t about pace anymore. It’s about optics.
Today’s run clubs aren’t fronted by elite athletes in split shorts — they’re led by cultural tastemakers in Oakleys, bouncy marathon shoes, Arc’teryx shells, Soar hats, hipster thigh tats and Salomons. It’s powered by £4.50 coffees and meets in gentrified inner-city parks with postcode cachet.
The run? That’s just the warm-up. The real status lives in the uniform, the footage, the post-run hangout.
Run club aesthetic is fast becoming the new streetwear.
It’s easy to write it off as performative, but something deeper is happening.
Running has evolved into a lifestyle code — aesthetic = identity = belonging.
As someone joked on Basement Approved: “If your run club isn’t filmed on this… then I’m not f*cking coming.”
Tongue-in-cheek, yes — but it captures a very real tension: cult authenticity versus open accessibility.
As running shifts into the fashion-sport crossover lane, are we seeing the same exclusivity mechanics we once saw in skate and sneaker culture?
Where cultural capital trumps performance — and the look determines who gets let in?
That said, the current crowd still feels pretty narrow. There’s space for this scene to open up — if brands and communities are willing to let it.
My take:
This is a textbook case of how subcultures form, gatekeep, and evolve — even around something as supposedly neutral as running.
If brands want in, they need to realise: they’re not marketing to athletes anymore.
They’re marketing to communities of cultural coders.
Let me know what you think or what you're seeing — and feel free to share if this resonated.
