About two months ago in the RunNYC forum on Reddit, a user asked, “Anyone know where you can buy Tracksmith products in NYC?”
At the time, there was only one correct answer: online.
That will change in early 2023 when Tracksmith, whose only current permanent storefront in the United States is the running apparel brand’s Boston Trackhouse, opens a brick-and-mortar location in NYC in Williamsburg. The grand opening of their permanent home in Brooklyn will come on the well-cushioned heels of its winter pop-up shop at 63 North 3rd Street, a 1,000-square-foot-space that opened last week and will welcome customers through the end of the year before it shutters.
Available at the holiday pop-up, which will offer weekly community runs beginning in December, as well as the new Brooklyn digs will be Tracksmith’s first expansion into the footwear category, an everyday trainer dubbed the Eliot Runner after the independent running brand’s hare mascot. A fresh shoe and a new store represent a lot of growth for a company that launched less than a decade ago (and will also be opening a London Trackhouse in 2023), but it is all just part of a plan that has been in place for a marathon’s length of time, according to Tracksmith founder and CEO Matt Taylor.
“These things always take longer than you think they’re going to take. It wasn’t really intended to be at the same time, but that’s just the way things have progressed,” Taylor tells InsideHook. “Opening in London and New York and launching the footwear at around the same time has created a moment where we’re finally able to talk about some exciting projects we’ve been working on for years.”
That’s no exaggeration. Even though Tracksmith is a New England brand that initially set up shop at the halfway point of the Boston Marathon in 2014, a New York store has been on Taylor’s company roadmap since the start. “We knew we would have a store here, it was just a question of when. Having this first store open will give us a permanent presence and the ability to do more,” he says. “We’re based here to be engaged with the community in Brooklyn. From our location, people will be able to pop up to McCarren Park during the week and do hard workouts on the track. We’ll also try to do various panel discussions, maybe bringing in someone who’s releasing a book or a film, so it becomes a hub for the community and allows us to do things you normally wouldn’t do in a regular brick-and-mortar retail store.”
Of course, the Brooklyn Trackhouse will also do things a brick-and-mortar running shop typically does, including selling the brand’s new gender-neutral shoe, a piece of footwear that was five years in the making. “The magic is in the midsole of the shoe, which is a foam called Pebax,” Taylor says. “It creates both a cushioned sensation and responsiveness, which is kind of the holy grail for running shoes. The more force you put into it, the more return you get out of it. This has a much different insole than any other running shoe on the market. We’re so excited to finally have it launched and ready.”
Look for it in Brooklyn.
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