Exclusive: Inside Hoka’s Fashion Ambitions

With its new Marni collaboration, Hoka is practically looking runway ready.

On Monday, the running brand and Italian luxury label unveiled a quilted, fluffy take on Hoka’s Bondi B3LS sneaker. While Hoka’s chunky, cushioned midsoles remain untouched, Marni reworked the sneaker’s upper and turned it into a “cloud of colour” inspired by Andy Warhol’s drawings, according to Marni creative director Francesco Risso.

The shoe will be released in four colorways on April 3, and at $395 retail, it will be the most expensive sneaker ever released by 16-year-old Hoka.

The collaboration, which follows Hoka’s high-fashion tie ups with Comme des Garçons and Paria Farzaneh in 2024, is the surest sign to date that the company has ambitions beyond running. The brand has grown quickly in recent years by appealing to runners with its rockered, ultra-thick midsoles, prompting even much larger rivals to copy it. But in markets like the US, most purchases of running shoes are driven by reasons other than running, while even customers looking for performance footwear are gravitating towards products that blur the lines between sport and lifestyle.

“To be with a partner like Marni puts us in a completely different stratosphere of being able to talk to a consumer that probably knows of us, maybe wears just our triple-black Bondis on the side, but now opens up a new world of being able to express themselves with the brand,” said Colin Ingram, Hoka’s vice president of global product.

Hoka’s fashion push comes at just the right moment. Baird senior research analyst Jonathan Komp anticipates that with Nike repositioning its business around innovation, with a particular focus on running, Hoka’s maximum share in core running-speciality accounts will be challenged.

But while there’s money to be made if Hoka can attract fashion shoppers along with dedicated marathoners, making the jump from performance to lifestyle is no small challenge. Under Armour learned that lesson when its multi-year effort to establish its style credentials through the late 2010s ultimately failed to produce results. And Hoka’s bulky shoes haven’t always been regarded as the most stylish choice.

“One of the fortunate things about the way Hoka has come to life, particularly in the lifestyle space, is that the consumer found us before we found them,” said Ingram.

Blending Style With Performance

Hoka’s goal is to attract new audiences without having to sacrifice its performance DNA. While the Marni-Hoka Bondi B3LS is designed to be worn as a statement piece for everyday wear, Ingram points out the sneaker’s soles were designed with performance in mind. The Bondi 3 originated as a road running sneaker in 2014 before Hoka began offering its B3LS version as part of its lifestyle offering. Marni sought to preserve that foundation in its version.

“I was very intrigued by the brand’s ethos, how it was born and how obsessive they are about their technology,” said Risso.

Cole Townsend, founder of the running-fashion newsletter and online directory Running Supply, noted that what’s made Hoka’s lifestyle plays different from its competitors is that it has centred most of those releases on existing performance styles, while older brands, such as New Balance, have leaned on archival retros. Up until the Marni tie up, Hoka’s fashion collaborations were often based on shoes you could still run in.

“They’ve done a good job of getting those lifestyle collabs without necessarily even changing their offering that much,” Townsend said.

That focus on current performance models may be due in part to the fact that Hoka is relatively young in the sportswear world. It doesn’t have much of an archive to pull from. But Ingram sees the brand’s youth as a strength, since it pushes Hoka to try new things rather than being overreliant on its past. He pointed out “crazier-looking” recovery shoes, such as the Ora Primo, and futuristic lifestyle shoes, such as the Elevon X, as examples.

According to Ingram, the brand’s customers don’t necessarily split cleanly into lifestyle-wearers or performance-focused runners, but instead find the brand’s offerings to be “multi-purposed.” He noted how Hoka’s recent collaboration with running label Satisfy, which was informed by both its lifestyle and trail-running sneakers, addressed both groups.

“You can have something that serves both of those things and feels authentic rather than having to choose one way or the other,” said Ingram.

That authenticity seems to be translating. At Essx, one of Hoka’s more fashion-forward retail partners, located in downtown Manhattan, lifestyle iterations of Hoka’s Bondi 8 road runners and its Mafate Three2 trail-running sneakers sell alongside the brand’s Comme des Garçons collaboration. Abe Chavez, Essx’s fashion manager, said customers are responding positively to Hoka because Essx’s customer base is invested in wellness, health and fitness as much as fashion.

“They aren’t the biggest in terms of fashion collaborations and aren’t known for drops like other brands,” said Chavez. “They do their own thing, which I think is cool because they’re authentic on their own.”

Keeping the Pace Up

Hoka’s emphasis on fashion comes at a moment when its runaway growth streak is getting harder to maintain. In January, parent company Deckers reported that Hoka’s sales rose to $531 million in the final quarter of 2024, up 24 percent from the same period the previous year but below some of the extraordinary growth it posted in prior quarters. Investors have questioned how long the brand can keep exceeding 20 percent growth each quarter, particularly amid concerns of a broader industry slowdown. Deckers’ shares fell after the report.

Baird’s Komp believes any headwinds could prove temporary, however. The brand has been in the midst of transitioning in new products, particularly in its Bondi and Clifton franchises, and in the quarter ahead it will face a tough comparison with last year, when it had a big period of selling to new wholesale accounts. At the same time, he notes Hoka has shown positive signs over the past 18 months by investing in talent such as new brand president Robin Green and releasing innovative new products such as the Cielo X1 super shoe. He also sees a big lifestyle opportunity.

“Their approach to target that customer is unique because they’re trying to stay rooted in their performance authenticity,” said Komp, pointing out how even a left-field release such as the viral Hoka Speed Loafer carries the same midsole as the Speedgoat 5, which was designed for trail running.

Ingram said Hoka is still considering its lifestyle distribution carefully. It’s not making its products available everywhere, or moving to put Hoka in every high end account. Instead, the label is focused on creating dialed-in assortments and strong agreements with retail partners to maintain how the brand’s story is told.

What excites him most about Hoka’s future within the fashion space is the opportunity to bring the spirit of “creationism” that produced the brand’s mountainous midsoles into a realm that lives outside of sport and performance.

“We don’t have to be truly beholden to the next evolution or iteration of the performance products, but instead make big bold leaps and to do some things that might knock people back in their chair a little bit,” he said.