How Parisian Brand Satisfy is Bringing Luxury to Trail Running Culture

How a French running apparel brand is bringing luxury to running to chase the High^TM

Who will love this

• Anyone who’s tired of wearing ugly beat up cotton tees to run in

• Francophiles

• Runners who long for the Rapha of running

Today

Good morning. 

I’m back from summer break & a bit of time running in the Alps, a little hiccup getting locked out of my newsletter software 🥳, and I’m fired up about cool running brands! 

Today’s letter is on Satisfy: a Paris-based running brand that proves what we all know is true - the French do style better than anyone. It’s also a good example of a brand leading with vision to shift the culture of a category. Shoutout to Alex & to Simon and Julie from Like the Wind magazine, who were the first people to tell me about Satisfy.

This week’s letter is also a peek into the running boom and the rapidly growing trail running industry. In 2022, global participation in trail running grew by 106% compared to the year before, according to World Athletics. We’re starting to see bigger running brands like On, Asics and Nike scale up their trail running offerings. Even Lululemon put on an ultramarathon event for women. We’re also seeing fashion x outdoor brand collabs like Swiss-based On releasing a capsule collection with FKA Twigs, and North Face x Gucci. We love to see it!

Today’s brand, Satisfy falls into the ‘is it running or is it fashion’ camp. Satisfy are a 9 year old brand who have:

• Been covered by GQ, Hypebeast, and the Wall Street Journal

• Have collaborated with HOKA, Crocs, and Aesop 

• Commanded a premium price (shorts = $240, tees = $140, hydration vests = $310)

It’s a great lesson in defying category conventions and going your own way. Put on your favorite French playlist and let’s get into it. 

Amanda

How Parisian brand Satisfy is breaking running category conventions with fashion forward trail running gear

I’ve written about this before, but running has long suffered from a dearth of style. Thanks to a number of new brands on the scene like Tracksmith, Bandit, and others, that’s changing. Satisfy is different. It’s a skateboard brand for people who love the outdoors: more about the culture and the lifestyle than about performance.

Business strategy 💸

Running is having it’s second boom, and it’s big business.

There’s a massive unmet need in the category for stylish running apparel. Until now, major shoe companies have dominated the running apparel market. But there’s a trend (driven by this need) of smaller, more interesting brands popping up to fill that need: Tracksmith, Bandit, and others. There’s also growing trend of fashion borrowing from running, and vice versa.

Brand strategy 🎯

Like any good brand strategy, Satsify’s brand strategy supports it’s business strategy. Strategy in its simplest form is the application of resources to achieve a goal. Unlike the big shoe companies, Satisify doesn’t have endless cash. What it does have is cache - French origins, cool products, indie spirit. It’s brand essence in a nutshell is romantic performance. I dig this.

There’s a bunch of different models for brand strategy, but I want to look at Satisfy’s through four lenses:

• Brand as product

• Brand as organization

• Brand as person

• Brand as symbol

Brand as Product: Designed in Paris for Running

Looking at the brand as a product, the Satisfy product is definitely unique. The product’s scope encompasses running apparel and fashion - as easily worn on the street as well as the trail. Satisfy’s product attributes include high quality materials (with cool names like GhostFleece, CoffeeThermal, CloudMerino) and interesting colorways. From a quality perspective, it’s high quality and premium - as noted by the $310 price tag for a running vest (for comparison, you could buy an REI branded vest for $100).

Who is Satisfy for? I’d define Satisify’s audience less as a demographic and more a pyschographic: people who enjoy running and want a premium running experience. Satisfy is for cool runners, or cool people who run.

Brand as Organization: Dedicated to Romantic Performance

One of the elements of a brand-as-product are its origins. Certain parts of the world are associated with innovation (Silicon Valley), precision (Germany) or style (France) and these places can help transfer those qualities to a brand. Perhaps even more important to Satisfy than its geographic location are its founder, Brice Partouche, who has a very particular vision of what running is and can be (and we know founder led brands tend to outperform others).

The way founder Partouche tells it, France had lots silk makers in the 40s and 50s, but when silk production moved overseas to asia, there were lots of mills left over that were able weave very thin fibers and transform the industry into technical fabrics - so Satisfy works with French fabric suppliers who are former silk makers. Satisfy group all of these fabrics under "Peace and Silence Technology", because (in their words) “they bring peace to your body and to your skin, and they are not noisy. So before being breathable or water repellent, we remove the distraction and create a system of peace and silence around the product.”

“We love the performance, but we have this approach of, I call it, "Romantic Performance" – it is not about achieving the goal, it is about the whole experience. To put it more precisely, it is like skateboarding – there is no score in skateboarding and there is no winner.

We are trying to change the game of trail running, especially in Europe. You have this pre-established trail runner look, with gear that is made of synthetic fabrics and spandex. So yeah, we are trying to shake things up and create a new vibe and look for trail running.”

Brand as Person

Like so many founder-led brands, Satisfy’s personality is heavily inspired its founder, Brice Partouche: a skateboarding, ex-denim maker who’s into music, fashion and running. If I think of Nike as a personality, I think of a win-at-all-costs athlete. Satisfy is different. It’s the in-the-know friend who knows all the best shows, art exhibits and up-and-coming fashion labels.

Brand as Symbol

As far as visual representation of the brand goes, Satisfy is city style against outdoor backdrops, overexposed photos, dreamy filters and very cool music (case in point: this brand film set to the War on Drugs). Satisfy partners with brands and athletes who aren’t strictly about performance, rather, it sponsors athletes who are interesting people who happen to run, and partners with brands like and Crocs and Aesop.

Brand marketing moves 💃

• POSSESSED magazine. Launched in 2021, Satisfy’s magazine celebrates the spirit behind the brand. Editorial and video content are one of the signals to me that an organization is building its brand intentionally (and is strategically investing in it), and Satisfy is no different.

• Chamonix off-road supply. UTMB, or Ultra Trail Mont Blanc, which happened in August, is like the Superbowl of trail running. Most brands had stalls at the official brand expo, but Satisfy took a cooler approach, with ‘Chamonix Off-Road Supply’. The brand rented out a chalet, hosting runs, activities and workshops and partnering with brands like Hoka, Leki, Maurten and Hydrapak, as well as debuting POSSESSED Magazine’s first physical edition.

• Sonic Youth x Satisfy collab. Satisfy partnered with the band Sonic Youth to release a capsule collection dedicated to “authenticity in cultural and artistic production,” netting coverage (and reaching new audiences) in Women’s Wear Daily, HypeBeast and Pitchfork.

• Re-Possessed. At the Paris Marathon, Satisfy invited runners to custom design their own racing singlets with leftover Satisfy material. Insight: most race merch is horrendously ugly (IYKYK). Smart.

“I like to compare the Satisfy online store to a merch table. It is like buying a souvenir from an experience, the experience of running.” Brice Partouche in Techunter Magazine

What can we learn from Satisfy?

• The power of listening for and respond to unmet needs. Most businesses don’t do this well. Satisfy is a masterclass in having a finger on the pulse of their customer’s world. They know that most race merch sucks, people are looking for a more fashionable alternative to running apparel, and there’s an opportunity to cultivate and foster a more interesting running culture.

• Throw a better party. Running exhibitions at official events like marathons are usually pretty dull - mostly, they’re a product demo. UTMB was no different. Satisfy demonstrates they know how to throw a better event and get people to turn up (and generate desire for people who aren’t actually on the ground).

• The wisdom of finding the right partners. Satisfy’s partnerships feel fresh and thoughtful. That’s not easy to do - especially when you’re a new brand establishing yourself in the space. Two things I see Satisfy doing well are identifying partners they can grow with (slightly niche trail and running brands like Maurten, or Leki running poles) and partnering with fashion brands who want to attract a new audience (runners) to their product (i.e. Crocs).

Are you a runner? What brands are you running in? Who’s doing something fresh that you’re loving? Hit reply, I’d love to hear from you!

Alright! That’s all for now. Happy Friday.

Amanda ✌️

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