Words by Paul Snyder. Photography by Quinn Dunziellas.

On a warm October afternoon, representatives from a Swiss sportswear giant, a scrappy streetwear brand, and a run specialty retailer walk into a storefront in downtown Austin, Texas. 

While this might sound like the start of a standup bit, it’s no joke. The combined forces that have brought together the great minds and visions of On x PLEASURES x The Loop, have been almost two years in the making. 

“Running is very punk rock,” states Alex James, co-founder of the Los Angeles-based streetwear label, PLEASURES.

The Loop is an Austin-based running store and community hub, founded by Pam and Ryan Hess. With a unique vision combined with the vibe of a community run hub, On connected the two – sensing an opportunity to make collaborators out of the idiosyncratic pairing. 

A musician and an audience, even an audience of one, makes for a concert, just like a solo morning runner becomes a running crew the moment a buddy starts tagging along. Both pursuits leave plenty of room for the DIYers to make their mark. “The barrier to [running participation] entry is super low, you just get on the street,” James adds. “It’s the same with music. If you wanna see a new band, you just go to the show. There’s no barrier to entry except maybe a ticket.” 

Then there’s the fact that running, much like your local punk scene, provides a safe refuge for countless people overflowing with a frantic energy that can be channeled into something all-consuming. “A lot of my friends who were in bands now dedicate themselves to fitness, to running,” James goes on. “Both lifestyles require blood, sweat, and tears.” The running world is chock full of these types – and they’re not always reformed road dog musicians, either. Ryan Hess runs a couple of times a week with a group of hospitality industry pros looking to eschew the traditional post-shift round of drinks. “It’s a way to stay healthy and find friends and community, but also for a lot of them, that shift to running really saved their life.”

And then there’s the borderline cultish behavior of members of both scenes, punk and running. There’s a certain uniform, a manner of dress, an affectation, a vernacular that’s inscrutable to the outsider, and that conveys a singular, internal focus. For a certain kind of person, the draw to such devotion is irresistible.

“As a new runner, you don’t know what you’re signing up for, and then the community that you join shapes you,” Pam Hess says. “And runners in Austin aren’t just dedicated. They’re obsessed.” 

Case in point: in 2023, there were 71 days where the high temperature in the city of Austin registered at over 100º Farenheit (37º Celsius). “You literally have to change your lifestyle around running because you have to be up and running by five or six in the morning,” explains Ryan Hess. 

Runners have a tendency to mythologize those hours at dawn. We attribute a spiritual significance to an alarm that sounds before the sun peeks over the horizon. But still, even for the lifelong diehard, it’s harder to glamorize – let alone justify to your family and  friends – the 8:00 pm bedtime that training wakeup requires. It would be entirely understandable if the cost of doing business, sleepwise, kept newcomers from the Austin running scene at bay. And yet… 

“Even if you don’t run when you move to this city, you may not realize it, but you’re going to become a runner,” Pam Hess says. “You don’t have to be an intense one, but we all end up on the Town Lake Trail. It’s like a bowling ball in the center of a trampoline: everything else rolls toward it.”

That gravitational pull, that strong sense of place, was something that James felt as well when it came time to get to work on the collection after coming out to meet the Loop team back in 2022.

“The inspiration came from my first time in Austin,” he recalls. “It was totally different from what I expected. Just like this trail, the scenery, the blue, blue sky. It’s a different sky than what we have in LA. So we wanted to integrate those colors and give it this vibe where it’s earthy, but not granola.”

And as the concepts behind the collection began to take shape, James was given access to something he’d never been able to incorporate into his work: a dose of Swiss precision and engineering, courtesy of On.

“We don’t usually have the access to technology for production like On does,” James notes. New fabrics, innovations and production capabilities opened up entirely new creative avenues. “From footwear to clothing, all the seams and different materials, I mean, we’re a streetwear brand, so it’s cool to work with someone who’s got a proven record using those things.”

And for the self-described perfectionists behind PLEASURES and The Loop, On’s backing also provided the reassurance that any risks being taken would raise the bar for everyone. “On doesn’t compromise on performance or style,” Pam Hess says. “They really try to elevate in everything they do and only put out great products. "

Perfection is deeply personal to its pursuer. And history is littered with tales of collaboration being rendered impossible by perfectionists unwilling to compromise on their own version of it. But that wasn’t what panned out here. “I think all three brands are trying to push the envelope and be the best at what we are doing in our respective lanes, and that’s where I think it all aligns really well,” says Ryan Hess. 

James and the Hesses agree that one other big reason the collaboration is so fulfilling, is that PLEASURES and the Loop are so different from one another. And that the collaboration works in the first place, is a testament to the changing reality of the running space.

“Since we started the Loop in 2017, we never hesitated to claim that expression, ‘look good, feel good,’” Ryan Hess explains. “You have the function, and you have the fashion, and you can check both boxes, and you don’t have to compromise.”

Pam Hess continues: “it feels like all of a sudden running apparel went from super nerdy, you know, neon… just horrible, to within the last couple of years, something you could wear out, because everything looks so good.”

Whatever your theory behind this shift away from the swagless runner archetype of yore – in James estimation “everybody kind of elevated their own style over the past decade, largely because of social media” – the shift is undeniable. We’re in the midst of a blurring of the lines between streetwear and activewear. 

With this being a running-focused outlet, it’s natural that the lion’s share of attention goes toward running becoming – for lack of a better word – cool. Adherents of the once visually dorky pursuit have stepped it up, stylistically. But it cuts both ways. To put it bluntly, there are more cool (or cool-presenting) individuals now running, including plenty of members of the PLEASURES team. That involvement in the sport cracked open the door a bit, and made a foray into performance running apparel more seamless, even if it was something entirely new.

But to hear James put it, “we’re not afraid of newness. If you don’t adapt, that’s when you get left in the dust. That’s why we do projects like this. To progress and to put our brand in a different light.”

The light in question here just happens to be overhead fluorescence mixed with Central Texas sunshine pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Loop’s showroom. It’s a space painstakingly curated by the Hesses to feel just as inviting for the core runner as the curious newcomer, in this case, the streetwear enthusiast who came to the store with a push from PLEASURES. 

It’s this mixing of worlds that’s central to something that On, PLEASURES, and the Loop are all passionate about: giving a platform to running culture and the diverse, passionate communities within it. “The people that you bring into your shop become the biggest ambassadors for your brand,” says Ryan Hess. To that end, the wider the backgrounds of the runners coming into the shop, the better.

If the collection embodies that desire to expand boundaries and make something unequivocally new, the initial response has provided ample reassurance that there’s a receptive audience out there. 

The project was announced with a low-key group run in Paris. “It turned out to be this awesome thing that people are still talking about,” says James, “like ‘oh, this is something different, I wouldn't have expected it, but it makes sense and I’m into it.’” The participants were there not exclusively for performance, but for the people.  “It was a lot of my friends who have stores but aren’t necessarily runners who participated, it was a feel-good thing.”

“You see lifestyle stores carrying run specialty now,” adds Pam Hess, “but it’s not every day you see those communities going out and actually doing the run – there’s usually less focus on that. But the fact that we brought these worlds together and people actually got out, that was a good way to kick off the project and it speaks to the direction the industry is going.”