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A yearly recap of the best collaborations that we saw in 2025
The year’s best shoes collaborations, gear, and new brands
Adidas, Asics, Bandit, Roa, Altra, Hoka, Nike, Norda, Raide, Satisfy, Hermanos Koumori, District Vision, Gnuhr, Post Archive Faction
Hermanos Koumori Mexico City Marathon capsule
Cover art by Octavio Platon (IG: @monsieursaturday)
The year’s over, so it’s time to look back on our spending: shoes, clothes, race entries. For run culture, 2025 marked its true crossover into the mainstream. Peak craze isn’t here yet, but some brands are already diversifying.
A new wave of independent brands is coming in, and those who used to be “challenger” brands are now the established names. The landscape is shifting. Consumers are no longer attracted to plain black t-shirts with Helvetica logos reading “Something Run Club.” Color is making a comeback. Looking ahead to 2026, expect to see more blue and lilac, and hopefully more experimentation.
There were a lot of releases this year, with something for literally everyone. But regardless of what anybody says, this is the list of the best ones.
Not an official collaboration, more of a DIY project, but hands down the best limited drop on multiple levels. It started with adidas and fashion brand Ante for their pop-up at the Berlin Half. JW Studios was invited to work his dye-dipping magic on a bunch of Adizero Evo SL. He picked several bright colors and dipped only half the shoe. The result was an instant hit.
Like the colorful iMacs in the 90s, it looked great in photos and in real life. It showed the Evo SL’s range and basically kicked off the running-shoe customization era. I assume adidas didn’t expect the Evo SL to land the way it did; otherwise, they would’ve turned this into a real drop instead of a DIY moment. Big miss from the three stripes, but it doesn’t change the fact that this limited custom version was one of the best of the year.
It was only a matter of time before Bandit got into the shoe collab game. Asics has a reputation for weak colorways on some launches, so when a clean Novablast 5 showed up, with low-key branding, a story, and thoughtful details, we all wanted one. The shoe came with a full collection and an exquisite campaign that was fun and clearly high-production. Bandit has been showing brands how limited editions are done: tell a story, build a world, and ship a good-looking product.
There’s a controversial technicality in BITR, and December is always a grey area for releases since our end-of-year lists typically go out in the beginning of the month. This shoe dropped in December 2024, but I’m making a non-executive decision to include it here. This collaboration stood out for bringing together two brands with contrasting styles. Altra is the nerd that doesn’t care what he’s wearing; Roa is the outfit-first persona. The shoe made Altra look cool, and Roa feel affordable, a match made in heaven. On foot, it became an instant classic, sold out almost immediately, and ended up on the feet of what marketing people call trendsetters.
Hoka x Marni
Unna x Hoka Speedgoat 2
Maap x Hoka Tecton X 3
Hoka spent the last couple of years taking a careful two-step: keeping performance credibility intact while expanding into fashion-minded hybrids that look as comfortable in the city as on dirt. This year, it kept the balance, collaborating with established names while also putting interesting new people in the spotlight.
Fashion houses, independent running brands, cycling, trail, everyone put a spin on a Hoka shoe, and it didn’t feel oversaturated. Highlights included the Marni collaboration (a puffy reinterpretation of the Bondi that looked like a skate shoe), the Tecton X2 collaboration with cycling brand MAAP, the Unna Speedgoat 2 with caterpillars included, the Haven collab, and then J-Juul. The list keeps going.
This category is for shoes people missed out on. They didn’t get fashion sites going crazy or Reddit exploding with comments, but they were standout collaborations and future holy grails.
When Adidas built a track in the middle of New Mexico, one shoe caught my eye. It looked like a retro EQT runner, but it was built with performance in mind. When it was finally released, it really was an experimental beauty: retro EQT energy, ripstop upper, and a big piece of Lightstrike Pro Evo. Simply put: the shoe of my dreams. Perfect for running and off-running. Unfortunately, it dropped at $500 in super-limited quantities, and I wasn’t lucky enough to get one. I hope it comes back in some form eventually.
Nike’s design team is back. This year, they put out shoes that made us salivate in the regular lineup and still found time to experiment. The International Pack was modern nostalgia done right: four current shoes, all of them looking retro without actually being retro. Yellowed soles, plus a printing technique that keeps the top performance features intact. I wish some of their athletes would wear them. The clothing was a failure, but the shoes will live on.
If Hollywood power couples were a trail brand, it would be this. The tabloids would call them Norde. Jokes aside, Norda and Raide make sense together. Both do incredible things that complement each other, so the limited-edition belt felt like a perfect joint effort: useful, simple, and tasteful.
To be allowed to play with Satisfy holes, you have to be one of the best. Post Archive Faction is known for silhouette experimentation and subtle details. For this limited drop, they applied a simple yet beautiful laser-cut pattern to the AuraLite, something that actually felt like both brand worlds at once. The tiny holes might or might not improve airflow, but at this point, who cares? It was a prime example of high-end running gear.
Adidas picked a Latin American brand as its first running collaborator, and it didn’t disappoint. They reimagined the usually boring Ultraboost into a cool-looking hybrid, but the clothing was the main attraction: a full collection packed with much-needed details. Shorts, hoodies, windbreakers, running tees, a singlet, a bandana, a cap, socks, lots of pockets, and internal hooks. You could build your whole wardrobe from this collection and look great. Cohesive, wearable, and the kind of drop you’ll keep seeing in the wild.
Yes, Post Archive Faction did it again. This time, reworking the Junya Racer with their usual mastery of cutting and subtracting. PAF could be the Rick Rubin of collaborations. Their version of the Junya takes inspiration from the lightweight structure of bird and butterfly wings, making the changes simple but enough to stand out from the regular line.
In 2024, I would never have expected the boom that the Polartec AlphaDirect fabric would experience in the market. Then Gnuhr became the talk of the town. Started in 2024 but kicking the door open in 2025 with simple yet beautiful pieces. The shorts with a web system for carrying essentials, the ultra-minimalistic vest you could cut and build yourself, and the multicolored tops in AlphaDirect, made in the USA. Reddit citizens were imploding trying to talk, but not talk much about the brand, unfortunately the cat was out of the bag. Gnuhr is not officially a running brand, but at this point, we are done with labels. Gnuhr is a never-ending experimental space, showcasing hardcore creativity and pushing the limits of what we can wear when we run.
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Alfredo is a runner, writer, creative director, and cultural analyst based in Berlin. After years as a casual runner, his move to Berlin transformed his running into a vital practice for mental health and a source of tranquility during cold, early morning runs. His interest in clothes comes from uniforms and sportswear, combined with a love for innovation and research—which might explain why he meticulously charts his winter running gear.
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