The Sweat Lookbook

Brian: [00:00:37] Hello, and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm Brian.

Phillip: [00:00:42] I'm Phillip. And today, this is an epic coming full circle moment for me because many years ago when we first started the podcast, Brian, one of our huge bucket list gets was someone from  Tracksmith, who I felt like was a sort of rising star brand at the time. Obviously, sweet center for me. Running is a big part of my life now. But the person who actually made that all happen, who's now a long time friend of the pod, is Lee Glandorf, who has a new venture called The Sweat Lookbook, and I finally get to welcome her to the show. Welcome, Lee.

Lee: [00:01:20] Hi, guys. Thanks for having me.

Phillip: [00:01:21] You spent time at Tracksmith, many other brands too. I think, you know, part of your story is that you've done a lot of work both on the athlete side and on the brand partnership side, and you've actually got this new venture, The Sweat Lookbook, where you're kind of putting some of those stories and some of that firsthand experience into words. Tell us a little bit about some of that.

Lee: [00:01:43] Yeah. My career and, honestly, my personal passion has always sat at the intersection of sports and fashion. You know, when I was thinking about starting The Sweat Lookbook, I was like, "This is everything that I've always been interested in since I was a teenager." I used to choose the sports I participated in based on the clothing, from Irish step in figure skating to I was really interested in lacrosse, but never got to play it. Ironically, I was a rower, and the clothing in rowing is not great.

Phillip: [00:02:18] Yeah, I was going to say, what's the row look? {laughter}

Lee: [00:02:20] It's I mean, what's funny is now rompers, one pieces are in and trendy, and they kind of give me PTSD because that's what you wear as a rower. It's not a good look. And I rowed in college. I was a history major, ended up starting my career in fashion, but stayed really close to sports and fitness and got to work at a PR agency with clients like Converse and some coaching and sports startups. And that really led me to Tracksmith where I was able to put those experiences together. I also, you know, worked for a while at Tommy Hilfiger, Alice + Olivia, some other fashion brands.

Phillip: [00:03:01] Wow.

Lee: [00:03:02] You know, Tracksmith was and is really at that intersection of fashion and performance. And I think, actually, I should have phrased it the other way. It's performance and fashion. Every decision that brand makes is rooted in how it serves the runner, and the aesthetic is rooted in the service of that as well. It's about I think one insight that was really cool from my time there was, Tracksmith has been around for a decade. So 10 years ago in sportswear, everything was really neon. It was really the way you showed people it was performance was kind of adding tech, especially on the shoe side, but even on the shirts. It had to show you this is a performance top in order for people to believe that it could perform. And [00:03:49] Tracksmith was at the front end of saying you can wear performance apparel that doesn't have to scream performance. And in some ways, that's the best way to showcase that you're serious about your sport. You're going to let your own ability do the talking and not have to show up in neon.  [00:04:08]I think the market has evolved a lot now that, you know, neon can single performance without being overblinged out. But at the time 10 years ago, that was really the only way that you were kind of showcasing it, and there weren't a lot of choices. So it was cool to grow up in sportswear with Tracksmith on a journey as the market really evolved too. I was telling someone the other day that the market for Tracksmith changed so much when Nike dropped the 4% shoe because that just unlocked people's desire to spend money on running apparel. Before that, we would constantly hear, "This is expensive. This is expensive." And after Eliud Kipchoge and the two hour project, the narrative just switched. And, you know, now we're seeing Vuori. We're seeing so many brands with premium activewear at price points that people before got really mad about.

Phillip: [00:05:05] That's right.

Lee: [00:05:06] Now people are like, "Okay. It performs. It works. It looks good. It suits my needs. And I'm wearing it all the time, so I'm willing to drop money on it."

Phillip: [00:05:15] Brian, I know you and I have gone back and forth a little bit on this new content venture. I think, you know, the long form, firsthand experience piece of people that are starting media ventures is becoming more commonplace and less niche now. But, Brian, when you're thinking about this and our look at women's sport, what are you thinking right now is the right question to ask of Lee?

Brian: [00:05:39] Well, I have so many comments and questions and thoughts on everything that you just said, Lee, because it just feels like the market continues to evolve. And to the point of I think it was the Wall Street Journal put out an article recently about how running is the new fashion.

Lee: [00:05:56] Yes.

Brian: [00:05:56] And you kind of inspired that in many ways.

Phillip: [00:06:00] Yeah.

Brian: [00:06:01] I think that when you have an article in the Wall Street Journal about something, it's 100% hit the mainstream. And so I think it's just so cool to see the work that you've done and how you've been able to honestly be the leader in pushing that, and now runners don't have to look like Power Rangers, I think, as Matt put it one time, which is good.

Lee: [00:06:24] Yeah. Credit to Matt Taylor, who's the Founder of Tracksmith and the whole Tracksmith team, you know, the photographer Emily Maye, who creates the visuals. Rafa Oliveira, who's the Creative Director who really kind of sat at the center of it. My job at Tracksmith as Director of Marketing was to help kind of disseminate that point of view and elaborate on it through different channels. I think it's interesting like I said when we started, there was a lot of "Huh. Do I want to look fashionable when I run?" was a question I think we'd see on message boards and things like that. There was kind of this old school mentality of cotton T-shirts and shorts that I got in college are fine. And that has really changed. And I think the tipping point I mentioned, you know, Nike and the 4%. I think, the pandemic and a lot of, for lack of a better word, cool kids embracing running because they didn't have any other avenues to express themselves physically, turned the light bulb on for a lot of people. And I think also, you know, obviously, the rise of social media platforms and more influencers kind of showing off their own personal style through running. It's all those things kind of accelerating, and then, of course, new brands investing in the space and pumping advertising dollars. Like On and HOKA have done an incredible job of finding that intersection of sports like LOEWE x On, that wouldn't have existed 5 or 6 years ago. And if it did and you're putting out, you know, $300 T-shirts, people would have been mad. And now people, I think, are still scratching their head, but they get it. And they say, "Yeah. There's a market for someone who wants to wear really expensive shirts while running, and I see them at a marathon, maybe not in Boston. I think that we don't have the market here in New York, in London, Zurich...

Brian: [00:08:18] Actually, I've seen a lot of lot of crazy stuff in Seattle. {laughter}

Lee: [00:08:22] Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool. I mean, I think it's an extension of the activewear market that's existed in yoga and in the gym. And now running has just become a lot more ingrained into a lot more people's lives. And so it makes sense that there's an intersection, and then you're starting to see more and more brands, both endemic to the sport and outside of the sport, try to capitalize on that interest.

Brian: [00:08:47] You hit on something that was really important, and that was the photography and content of Tracksmith, which was just absolutely gorgeous. And it seems so natural to me that you would be moving toward The Sweat Lookbook and content because content's really how, in many ways, you make a market. It's the intersection of of content, culture, and commerce is the way to make something actually come to be. And so, oh, I love what you've been getting at in the newsletter, and I would like to kind of shift over to the Olympics in particular because I feel there's such a huge... Well, first of all, you put out some incredible content about it. And second of all, I think we're seeing a moment now where it's probably one of the first super online Olympics as they say on X right now. And so there's a lot more opportunity to hone in on specific aspects of the Olympics and nerd out. And that's what Internet culture is really good at is zooming in on something and nerding out hard about it. And so I love the things you've been drawing attention to. What do you see with fashion and style in the Olympics right now, and why now? What's the thing for you that makes it super interesting?

Lee: [00:10:18] Yeah. I think there's a host of different things. I mean, I think that this is the 1st Olympics where it's 50 percent men and women competing, which is really cool. And so I think that when it comes to performance and presentation women have a heavier burden in terms of what they look like when they're competing than men. You know, I was thinking about this. The swimming has kind of fascinated me. The guys rip off their swim caps at the end of a race, and they're just like, "Look at me. I look great with my wet, messy hair." And if you notice, most of the women keep theirs on. Like, they don't rip it off. Right? Because they don't know what their hair is going to look like if they pull it off really quickly, and I think they want to kind of  keep that. Or maybe it's not just tradition. I'm not a swimmer, but it's just kind of like a little nuance that I've noticed. And then so I think that as you have more women participating in sports, there is a burden of presentation that they have had. In the past, that burden wasn't really talked about. People didn't want to answer questions about what makeup are you wearing. They'd be kind of offended. They're like, "Let's talk about my performance." And I think that there's been a shift in the last 5 or 6 years. I think that where athletes have kind of recognized the opportunity to talk about, especially if they have a personal interest in something like makeup or nails and exploit isn't the right word, but take advantage of that interest to, you know, build their brand. I think social media is obviously the tool that has allowed them to do it. I think savvy brands like Glossier that have partnered with the WNBA and seen the opportunity to say these women have a platform and they have faces, for lack of better word, and we can celebrate those faces is really smart. And so I think it's shifted from this being like, I remember there was Shannon Rowbury is a track runner, and she was known for wearing a really bold lipstick while running. And for a long time, I think she got side eyed for the lipstick because it was like, "Oh, you can't be that serious about running if you're showing up, taking time to think about what color lipstick you're wearing before their 10k." Serious runners show up, especially in the distance field track. Sprinters since Flo Jo have been kind of known for celebrating their style. But I think that added attention on the sport, more women in the sport, social media, and the ability to build platforms and answer questions like, 'Where are you getting your lashes done?" Or, "What color is your manicure?" And people seeing brands reach out to them or their engagement grow because of that. I think all those things are bolstering the intersection of sports and fashion. And then, you know, the timing of Paris and the investment of LVMH into the Olympics cannot... You know, once there's money from the fashion side really in it, you can't discount the fact that that's going to draw more eyeballs, more money.  [00:13:21]I'm seeing Vogue publish so much more sports content, like pure sports. Just saying, "Here's a performance from Simone Biles," on their social media platform is really telling me that we've kind of hit a tipping point in terms of where this intersection lives. [00:13:37]

Phillip: [00:13:38] One of the things you wrote about in that piece I think around the swimmers and sort of the aesthetics of the podium is this idea that some of the traditions that we have around podium presentation and their adjacency to the event itself is, like I think the way you put it was, "They couldn't give them a few minutes to blow out their hair?" Part of the way that we do things is rooted in this old mentality. Do you foresee or do you think that there will be pressure as more women are competing in a more equitable way in sports, especially at events like the Olympics that we start to see some of that shift, to be more in favor of over what the athletes want or even asking them what it is they want versus just doing things the way that we've done them because of tradition?

Lee: [00:14:29] Yeah. So just for context for your listeners who maybe don't know, it struck me that I was noticing that female swimmers have to get on the podium, and most of them are up there with sopping wet hair. And they don't look bad, but I have to imagine that when you're looking back at these photos that you're maybe a little annoyed that you couldn't have spent a little more time fixing it so that you liked the way you looked. And I noticed that Tatiana Smith had a bow, like a bow headband that she put in her hair. So she clearly spent some time thinking about how I'm going to look on this podium when I receive my gold medal. And I'm fortunate to have a friend who won a gold medal in rowing, and I asked her, "Hey. What was your experience getting up on this platform after you won?" And she's like, "Yeah. I hated that I had to get up there. They didn't give us time to change. We got up in our competition suits, and they made me take my hat off, and I thought I looked not great, and I don't love looking at those photos." And, you know, something clicked for me that I just was like, "Oh, the reason that's happening is because there aren't enough women in the room saying, "Can't we just give them a little bit more time?'" I know there's a schedule, but it's just there's been a way that these events are run. The majority of the people making the decision about how these events are run are men, and no one is kind of pausing and saying, "Is this serving the athlete? Is this the experience that they want?" And the outcome is that you have these situations where people are put in and they suck it up, essentially. You know? But what's really cool is social media is helping kind of expose the ways that this isn't serving the athletes. I think I saw a post that Gabby Thomas, who just won the gold medal in the 200 meters, did on TikTok, and she mentioned going to the Olympic hair salon and getting her hair done. And she talked about how this was an important pre race ritual for her, but she was nervous because she wasn't sure that the stylist at this salon in Paris were going to know how to work with black hair. And, ultimately, it turned out great. She looked awesome. She looked beautiful when she won the 200 meter. But, you know, fortunately, the Paris Olympics did think through that and have people working. We think about it all the time on photoshoots too. Do you have talent behind the scenes that are going to be able to serve the talent that's in front of the scenes? And so I think that as, you know, we get 50% of women in sports more often and we get more women at the top of these events and food chains, we can just take a second and pause or just ask the question, "Did you think about this? Did we think about having stylists who can serve women of color in our salon? Did we think about what it means to have to go up at the most important moment in your life and be there with wet dripping hair?" It feels different... If you're a man, you don't even notice. You can dry your hair so much more quickly. If you're a woman with long hair and you have to go up there and smile and wave, I don't know. It's just really, I knew I would be feeling badly and sometimes, you know, when you can feel an emotion, you start to wonder how would that person feel? And like I said, social media has really exposed or it's given athletes the opportunity to voice or to share how they're feeling in a way that we never got before, which is so cool.

Brian: [00:17:38] It's just such a huge opportunity for brands to step in and take part. I think that if you think about how a lot of things get done in sports, in all sports, it's because sponsors step in and help out. There used to be clipboards on sidelines of the NFL, and then Microsoft Surface came along and said, "You need better tools." And in so many ways this similar thing where it's like a lot of these women come to these sports at great personal expense, especially if you're not already known. They're coming, and this moment, like you said, is the biggest moment of their life. And they're going to step up on this podium, and it's going to change their life because they're going to get new sponsors. And to not be equipped and ready for that moment and look their best, it's not just a personal moment. It's a personal brand moment. And so I think you're so right, Lee. There's a huge opportunity, not just for the Olympics, which I think is true, but also for brands to step in and say, "We want to give you the tools to make sure that when you step into that moment you are at your best." And yeah, there's so much opportunity right now.

Lee: [00:19:02] Free idea for Dyson. Right? I was going to say that I think FIGS has done a really good job.

Phillip: [00:19:08] Yes.

Lee: [00:19:08] I was watching Peacock last night, and I noticed how they have the heart of the moment, and they were showing... I forget whose parents. But that was so great, and I've loved the campaigns that they've run. It just showcased the Team USA Doctors and Medic. It's such a smart way for a brand to insert themselves in a moment and take ownership. And, yeah, so I think you're totally right. Let's get Dyson on the blow dry. I mean, one of my favorite moments that I've spotted thus far from the Olympics is, Chari Hawkins is a great athlete, who's a really big running platform. And she's been sharing, like so many athletes, tons of behind the scenes from the games. And I loved her manicure, and I spotted it. And I was like, okay. I want to post her manicure. It's cute. And then right before I sent the newsletter, I noticed that she had tiny little Brooks logos on her manicure, which is just like a genius because as you know, Nike sponsors the track and field athletes. Other running brands maybe get the opportunity to show themselves on their feet. That's the most they can get. They can't really talk about it, you know, unless their athlete wins. And so for an athlete like Chari to be like, "Oh, let me put Brooks on my fingernails." Here's another little space to showcase it and in a really sly way. Athletes have gotten in trouble before by making brand tattoos, and they've gotten called out and said you can't do that. So I'll be interested to see if anyone caught it other than me, and she has to remove it from her fingernails. But I bet you they didn't because I almost missed it. You don't want these people to become billboards, but I think we were talking about with FIGS, you know, a Glossier and the US women's national team. There are some really interesting ways for brands to intersect with sports that feels authentic and real. I love what Left on Friday did with the Canadian women's volleyball team, and co-creating their uniforms in a way that felt new and fresh.

Phillip: [00:21:17] Say more about that. I'm not aware of that.

Lee: [00:21:20] So Left on Friday is a women's performance activewear brand in swimming. They've kind of sat at the intersection of they're similar to kind of the Tracksmith founding ethos. They've said, "There's either performance swimwear like Speedo or there's fashion swimwear that's not great if you're actually going to try and swim some laps."

Phillip: [00:21:40] Right.

Lee: [00:21:40] So let's create products that look good, but also perform really well. And they're a Canadian brand, and so they got the team deal with Canada's beach volleyball. And one thing that they co-created with the athletes was these very interesting one shoulder bathing suit tops. And so, you know, volleyball attire is kind of controversial. Right? Like, the women wear so much less than the men. But the athletes, for the most part, that's part of the culture of the sport. They like it, but they work together to say, you know, okay. You're going to wear a bikini top, but what's the issue with the bikini top? And, apparently, the athletes felt like they could have more freedom of movement with a single strap than with two because it helped give them more freedom for their serving arm. I reached out to Left on Friday to ask if they made one for lefties versus righties because I was like, I assume that you need a lefty version and the righty version. But the style is really fashion forward. Right? It's like this very cool one shoulder swimsuit, but then it has a function for the athletes that they work together to develop. So I think it's been cool as a, you know, observer of the games to see more of these smaller brands kind of take up space. Bandit Running, sponsored the Virgin Islands, Actively Black, has the entire Nigerian team both, I've seen the outfits for canoeing as much as track and field. A lot of times you see them only sponsor one sport, but they have the entire federation, which is really impressive. So I think that LVMH is obviously taking ownership of the games, but it's been very cool to see a lot of these up-and-coming brands celebrated and celebrating athletes and kind of the unique sports and the needs of those athletes.

Phillip: [00:23:35] There's been a lot of talk about tunnel fits and the culture around sort of where the fashion runways are. I know that's sort of recurrent theme of some of the titles of your last few issues. During Wimbledon, it's the court is my runway or the beam is my runway. Do you think that the fashion, was that an intentional decision to bring this into a more visible stage, especially with the changing of the opening ceremonies and sort of just kind of resetting our expectation of what can be in the opening ceremonies? How much of that is the influence of LVMH in this Olympics games versus a cultural moment that seems to be happening everywhere going back to maybe Caitlin Clark, some things that are also happening in the world that are making us make these types of decisions now.

Lee: [00:24:34] Yeah. I mean, Lauren Sherman had a really good podcast on Puck where they talked about the LVMH of it all. And she and her partner, I'm forgetting the name who she was speaking to, had some good insights on how LVMH came to be the kind of biggest sponsor outside of the classic folks for the Olympics. And it seems like they've kind of dragged their feet to do it. And then when they got into it, they've gone, you know, whole hog and brought Vogue and all these other media platforms along with them. So I think follow the dollars as it were. But I think in general, there's been a heightened it is kind of part of the zeitgeist. Right? You have the rise of women's sports, the WNBA finally getting the attention that it deserves. You have brands investing. I thought it was so smart when Nike and A'ja Wilson came out and said, "The shoe's been in the works, guys." And I think there's been a lot percolating behind the scenes that has come to a head in this moment, where you're starting to feel like, wow. I'm seeing the way that sports and fashion and culture intersect in a way that I had missed before. I don't think Taylor Swift dating one of the biggest sports stars hurts. It's just just putting a lens. I mean, not that the NFL needed kind of the attention that they had, but I think [00:26:05] brands are understanding that women are interested in sports, both men's sports and women's sports, and they're saying, "Let me find ways to get my dollars in there." [00:26:16] I think one thing that I'm really passionate about in The Sweat Lookbook is elevating the conversation around women's sports and fashion to be about performance. I think for a long time, brands have as they've started to cater to women, the women's consumer, they've tried to soften the message. Right? It's a lot of wellness. It's a lot of community, which is great. I think that that's important. I think people have correctly recognized that the way men were talking about sports was not inclusive to all women, did not appeal necessarily to every women's way of thinking about sports. But I think in that, we've kind of lost this understanding that women care about performance too. Women are competitive too. And I think that brands that only want to focus on activewear and wellness have been doing women a disservice. And so I think the rise of interest in women's sports and fashion has allowed for a little bit more nuance in the conversation. And I think to see Simone Biles absolutely dominate and then pull out a Fenty makeup case and quickly on camera fix it. You know, Jordan Chiles, similarly, was taking out lip gloss. As we have more women performing at a really high level of attention on it, it's going to bubble up these moments of intersection because it's authentic to who they are and what they care about. Right? So I think it's a lot of little pieces kind of adding up. I think, you know, it's always about money. Right? Like, the money is there. But I think that money plus the attention, plus we've talked about just platforms that allow female athletes to showcase more of their personalities than they were able to when it was just the New York Times interviewing them.

Brian: [00:28:17] Right. It's super interesting. There are two directions I want to take this, so I'm going to do a quick aside. I think it's really interesting that the sport and the attention it's receiving is attracting the money. But, also, I think [00:28:32] we're living in a world now where that money, that brand's influence can also make the sport. These brands are coming in, and I actually think they're powering more attention on the sport itself. And that is empowerment. [00:28:49] I think that that is something that brands could be doing, and there is money to be had if they go empower. So by actively ignoring women's sports for so long, they've actually, I would argue that they've been saying no to a bunch of money that they could have had by making the market. And so I'm glad to see that they're finally coming around. The second thing I want to hit is performance, and you mentioned the one shoulder top. And I think that this is so exciting because whenever there's performance available to compete on, that's when product innovation starts to happen. When something is even a fraction better for performance, elite athletes are going to be there. They're ready to go take it on, and this starts this extreme box checking cycle where it's like, oh, we're like 2% better on this and 1% better on this. And people can continue to compete. And I think this also inspires upmarket purchasing. So when you start to get performance involved, it pushes up price point, and it pushes up what people are willing to spend on because of that very competitive angle to the product itself. And so women's sports actually offers more opportunities in many ways than men's sports for performance, and we talked about this on a recent episode that we what we did where it's like there are so many more things to think about in women's sports than in men's sports, and you've covered that at length here. Like, men don't care about their hair. Women, when they take off their cap, there's more things to think about. And so that performance angle, I'm curious, your thoughts on how that spiral is going to play out.

Lee: [00:30:45] Yeah. That's a really good question. I think, you know, having worked in sportswear and been in the room when things have been fitted, this is you'll notice in my newsletter, I get really neurotic about fit and how things look on the female bodies. And my biggest pet peeve with the opening ceremony outfits is always they're designed for men first, and then the way they look on women is a total afterthought. And you can just tell. You just look at them and tell, and this has been the case in activewear for a long time. It's changed a lot. You have brands like Athleta and Lulu starting from a women's body first. The huge challenge that I've seen when it comes to performance for men versus women is in this generalization, of course. Active men, men's bodies tend to be more similar. There's not as much going on. Women's bodies have curves, and those curves come in all sorts of different shapes, sizes. You know, some women can be, and especially when it comes to high performance, you'll see beach volleyball is a great example of it. One of the beach volleyball teams, one woman is 6'2, the other woman's 5'6, and they're performing at the same level. Right? But their physicality is very different. And as a brand, you have to try and cater to a wider range of body types than you ever do on the men's men's side. Like most men, sometimes athletic butts will be a little bit bigger or but there isn't as much variation.

Phillip: [00:32:19] Present. {laughter}

Lee: [00:32:20] But there isn't as much variation in what that means. Whereas on the women's side of the sport, it is, like you said, Brian, much more complicated, much more nuance to the needs, whether it's sports bras or wear the pockets fit or the British women's national soccer team being like, "Hey. We don't want to play in white shorts. It doesn't work well when we're on our period. Can we fix this?" And people being like, "Oh, yeah. You're right. It would be nice if we just gave you navy shorts." I know the men play in white ones, but that isn't a performance issue for you guys. So you know, I think that again, 50% women, 50% men in the Olympics for the first time ever. It just tells you how many opportunities there are to evolve performance. And I think especially in niche sports. Well, actually, I shouldn't say this. Nike got blasted for those unisuits that they had for the women. Honestly, again, talking about not having women in the room, you see a lot of the athletes running in those unisuits, so I think they actually fit pretty well. I think what happened is there wasn't a woman looking at the mannequin being like, "Guys, this looks really weird. Don't put this mannequin out." And they got railed just for not having enough people looking at a small detail. Because it obviously fits and performs well, but one of my kind of tenants in The Sweat Lookbook beyond just kind of assessing the looks or the performance of it is just kind of like asking yourself, "Do you think there was a woman who was involved in this?" Because you know in sports, at the highest decision-making levels, maybe right now in the zeitgeist, women's sports is up there. The number of women who were the lead designers, the executives, the top CMOs is still so marginal in the sports industry that you're going to continue to see mistakes happen until we start to have parity up there. And we just don't have parity there right now because of, again, 50%, 50/50 now. So I think, like you said, Brian, there's a lot of opportunity as you start to have more women in these kind of decision making positions or these designing positions. A last note on that is one thing I did think was really cool is that On has launched their crazy new robot shoe, and they launched it with Hellen Obiri. Right? She wore it at the Boston Marathon. She's going to wear it in the marathon this weekend. And I honestly can't think of a time a major sports brand launched an innovation on the feet, the literal feet of a female athlete. Right? She is their best runner by far, and she's their Roger Federer for running. But still, they've invested and told that story in The New York Times with Vanessa Friedman, and they talked about Hellen Obiri's experience in the shoe. And they're willing to say "Hellen Obiri's performance will sell the shoe to men, which I thought was really exciting. We haven't seen that. Nike launched the 4% on Eliud Kipchoge. Right? And again, him breaking 2 hours in the marathon was an incredible feat. That was a good investment of their time and energy in marketing that shoe. But, at the time, there were women saying, "Hey. Could we have done something similar on the women's side of the sport? Could we have tried to have women break 2:15 in the marathon similarly? Why does it all have to be about..." Two is nice. Right? It's a marketing effort. But I think as you're starting to see brands say, "Hey. We can market a shoe on the backs of a female athlete, and people will buy it." It's a Caitlin Clark effect.

Phillip: [00:36:16] For sure.

Lee: [00:36:17] People want her jersey. You know, I think more and more brands will wake up to the opportunity to center women's stories and center women's performance at the heart of it rather than having to be like, "What's the women's story? What's the men's story?" We can have a Michael Jordan moment with a woman, and it will sell.

Phillip: [00:36:38] A lot of the discourse around Olympics, and I know that's on the brain right now, but a lot of the discourse has been around, I would even say critique. And I think this is kind of key. It's something I'm noticing now is having things to not like is almost more important for starting discourse than it is to have things that people like because often people don't talk back to things they like. So I'm curious if you see room for critique in this. There are a couple of things we mentioned so far, but a lot has been made of the Ralph Lauren, America team opening ceremony fits. There might be other things out there. Is there is there room for critique, and what critiques might you have in what you've seen so far?

Lee: [00:37:24] I mean, I think The Sweat Lookbook is predicated on the idea that there is room for critique. I think, you know, in launching the Substack, I was inspired by a lot of other Substacks by women who are kind of opening up space for critique or just sharing their points of view on things that are trending. So I think there's kind of a unique opportunity within that platform. Obviously, people on Twitter have been doing that forever, and I think TikTok too really enables kind of critique. You know, I think that as anything gets more popular, we kind of move beyond the let's just celebrate it moment to the let's discuss how this is working or not working. I think it's healthy to assess the ways that we are or are not serving the athletes in this space, and to raise questions, like we said, about things that have been kind of traditional. Why does it always have to be Ralph Lauren? I know why. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:38:27] Right. {laughter}

Lee: [00:38:28] I know why it's always going to be them, but I would love to see them do something different for LA. Like, maybe just a Ralph Lauren collaboration with a different up and coming LA based designer or something.

Brian: [00:38:41] Right.

Lee: [00:38:41] You see some of the most exciting fashion coming out of the opening ceremony was from smaller nations that celebrated their cultural style, partnered with designers like Haitian-Italian designer, Stella Jean. I'm going to expose my inability to speak French.

Phillip: [00:39:02] Sure. Telfar and Liberia. Right?

Lee: [00:39:05] Yaeh. That's started in Tokyo. So they've kind of set the precedent for it. And I think that when you have incumbent brands playing in the swimming pool, it then opens the door for even more critique of kind of the existing brands here. Maybe like, "Have you guys been resting on your laurels?"

Phillip: [00:39:23] Yeah.

Lee: [00:39:23] "Have you been pushing the envelope here?" I think that's where a lot of the root of kind of how's Nike doing in this space comes from. You know? And I think there's opportunity to both celebrate and kind of question is this enough? From my newsletter's point of view, it's very subjective, and that's a fun part of it. Right?

Phillip: [00:39:54] You spent so much of the last almost decade helping to grow and scale a brand that's become kind of a household name in running culture. So I'd love to get back to the question that I primed you for. But there has been some critique of brands like Nike who seem to be taking their licks over strategy shifts, obviously, at a different echelon. But I would assume Tracksmith couldn't have existed without performance marketing, but maybe I'm wrong. What's your perspective on some of the critiques that have been leveled on bigger brands and the way that they've shifted their marketing strategies over the years, especially since the pandemic, if you put on your CMO hat?

Lee: [00:40:48] That's a good question. I think that when it comes to Nike, I think it was a lot of decisions. I know internally, there was kind of they just picked a shift away from running, I think, at a time when everyone else was over-investing. So it was just a bad bet. I think we always like to sit in our chair and be like, "I would have never made that decision." I think if you read Shoe Dog, you can understand how at one point running was so core to that business, but they evolved to excel in other spaces and the market evolves. And so I think, you know, it's easy to Monday quarterback and say, "How could they have messed up by taking themselves out of wholesale so much and really dropping the ball there?" Which I think is kind of the key to where they've been, you know, with the rise of running culture as much as we want to say direct to consumer brands are the ones powering it, the reality is is if you're a runner is, you know, people are making those decisions at their local running store.

Phillip: [00:42:00] That's right.

Lee: [00:42:01] They're going in there and they're asking someone, "What shoe do you like?" And I remember just coming out of the pandemic, my husband and I went to our local running store, Marathon Sports, and he needed a new shoe. And I knew what I wanted because I was very dialed in to, "No. I'm going to run in this shoe, and this is what I like. Give it to me." And he was open to learning about a new shoe, and they assessed him and they gave him an On shoe back before On was anywhere where they are now, and it was before you're seeing it on all the dads. And he ran at it and he liked it, but that was the interaction. They were there investing in educating the salespeople at Marathon Sports, at Dick's, and getting them to get people to try it at a time when Nike was pulling out of doing that and not educating with them, not innovating in that space. And Brooks, to their credit, On to their credit, HOKA to their credit, invested like crazy in those channels. And then people couldn't have foreseen a function like the pandemic that left running to be kind of the only great opportunity for us to move physically. And then by the time Nike and to some extent, Adidas kind of realized what was going on, the power was in those running shoe brand stores. Right? They have the ability to say, "We'll give you space and we won't. How are you going to make it worth my while to celebrate you to my very loyal, very dedicated customer base?" So I think that was probably, from my perspective, the biggest mistake. I don't know about the performance dollars that were going into things. I think we could talk about influencer strategy for a long time. It gives me the eck mostly on the running side because it can feel very inauthentic. I think it can feel really authentic too, but it's a hard balance to find. In terms of anything, neglecting the community is probably the biggest mistake any brand and running can make. There were some brands like Tracksmith, like Bandit, like On, like HOKA, doing really smart innovative things to engage that community at a time when some of the bigger brands just took their eye off the, I don't want to say eye off the ball, eye off the track, I guess, for lack of a better word.

Phillip: [00:44:35] I would say this. I don't know if you would say this, and maybe this is showing my naivete. I might even say that it shows that the Clayton Christensen sort of ideal of how disruption works in a marketplace, how small brands can make big impacts because what it feels like, at least the story that's being told right now, is that Nike wanted to be like the Tracksmiths of the world and be more direct to consumer, and they were trying to copy that model and move away from their existing model. At least that's the story that's being told. And I think that that's a really interesting thing is how much of an impact a small and important brand with a community that has a very specific and distinct point of view, especially when you are resetting, when you're approaching it from an aesthetic point of view too, I think it's incredible to me that you don't have to actually change the whole culture. You just have to affect the mind of a couple executives {laughter} and get in their brain and live rent free there for a little while, and you can change the world. And I think that that's such a because I think brands like Tracksmith did single handedly create the opportunity for other challengers to come in if you want to storytell it that way. I think that that's... I would say that's the lore, but that's just me. Okay. I'm so curious. What do you think of all the discourse around the run clubs and maybe how they're relating this back to other things of human belonging, like relationships and dating and maybe a new spirituality. And I've heard the word cult. What do you think about all of these, Lee?

Lee: [00:46:18] Well, it's interesting. I think kind of the discourse around new spirituality. It was like Soul Cycle, you know, before the pandemic. It was all those bougie fitness classes, you know, then it was Peloton and the cult of the different instructors. So I think there's always kind of a new space that's kind of inhabiting that for people. I think that running, especially in major cities, is providing a really incredible opportunity for a third space, right, that was annihilated during the pandemic and also has been... You think about Gen Z, people coming out of college, a lot of them had their college experience or the high school experience disrupted by the pandemic. They've lost the ability to kind of interact well in person, and running is a safe well, it can be safe if the community is doing it well, but it's a really wholesome way to interact with other people and also work on your fitness, be outside, not be on your phone, which I think the not be on your phone part as a marketer is the number one thing that keeps me back to running. It's the only thing that keeps me sane. I'm not a run club girly just because, you know, it doesn't fit into my lifestyle right now. But I understand where the desire to be in community with other people is coming from. But I think it's especially potent for younger people, and then younger people are the people on TikTok creating the content and celebrating it. What I think is funny is people acting like it's new. Right? If you go to London and you talk to Charlie Dark, who started some of the first run crews, or you're in New York on the Lower East Side, a lot of these very cool, very grassroots in Boston, Pioneers Run Club, a lot of them are led by runners of color who created communities that are really safe and welcoming because they didn't exist for them. And those are a lot of the run clubs kind of driving the zeitgeist of run club run community. So it's a little bit of a shame that lost in this buzz is the fact that it's really rooted in that community building by people who wanted to feel safe when they were running, who needed to be in community with other runners who look like them. And now you have this buzz. Like, it's cool. Let's hit it again. It's kind of rooted in that culture. You know, I'd love to shout out Pioneers, which is a great running brand started by Sid Baptista that was rooted in his experience launching a run club in Boston 10 years ago so that they could run in neighborhoods like Dorchester and Mattapan where traditional run clubs weren't going because they were staying in the Back Bay, and so it wasn't accessible to their community. So I think that it's really cool to see that growth. I think it'd be interesting to see someone kind of talk about the actual roots of the culture and give credit to that. Sid started Pioneers because he was tired of brands coming to him and saying, "Can we market to your run club?" And they would get a small check, and then he realized, "Why am I not the brand?" Right?

Phillip: [00:49:41] Totally.

Lee: [00:49:42] So I think there's still a lot of interest. I think with that growth, we'll hopefully come a spotlight on some of those communities and some of the work that's being done. I think brands are doing a better job of how they're showcasing those stories. I think some of the partnerships at the Olympics have showcased that brands are trying to think through those things. But yeah, [00:50:06] it's kind of an interesting moment in run club culture where there's a lot of people coming in pretending like this has never existed before, and a lot of, I think, people on the other side being like, "We've been here. We've been doing it. We just weren't TikTok-ing about it." [00:50:23]

Phillip: [00:50:23] I love that. I love that. That's such a mic drop. I also think the other side of it too is people just love to yuck other people's yum. Yucking a yum is kind of a pastime for a lot of folks. I think this is great. Wow. I can't believe that that went so quickly. Lee Glendorf, author of The Sweat Lookbook. You should definitely go subscribe. Whatever you do go check it out on Substack. And Lee, thanks for coming by Future Commerce for the first time. We should do this again soon.

Lee: [00:50:51] I would love to. Go women's sports. Right?

Phillip: [00:50:54] Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

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