This summer, Ashley Ellefson, a 39-year-old operations executive, was running along Manhattan’s East River Promenade when she spotted a group of men, many of them clad in Bandit Running gear, coming toward her. They ran her off the road.
“I had to very quickly get out of their way, otherwise I was going to be trampled,” she said.
Ms. Ellefson, a Bandit fan and member of its subscription program, was training for the Chicago Marathon at the time. Despite her experience on that run, she still tried to buy Bandit’s Chicago-themed racing crop when it became available. It was sold out, so she wore a different Bandit top in the race.
“It has this cachet,” she said. “And they do a really good job with pockets.”
Started in Brooklyn in 2020, Bandit Running is part of the changing face of running apparel, which had never previously had the street fashion cool factor often bestowed upon gear for skateboarding, surfing, basketball and tennis.
Tracksmith, a Boston-based company known for preppy and expensive gear, led the way among cult running brands. But Bandit, alongside other niche brands like Satisfy Running, Saysky and Miler, has quickly become respected for its quality and has created a visual shibboleth among more serious runners.
Helping Bandit set itself apart is its New York identity, which has allowed it to leverage the city’s own mythology and its wealth of run clubs. Those clubs, for many New Yorkers, have taken running from a solitary pursuit to a scene.
While most of Bandit’s sales happen online, where it boasts 18,000 people in its virtual training program, the company has opened two retail locations: one in Greenpoint and one in the West Village. The brand’s gear is also carried in 46 stores around the world, with sales having nearly quadrupled this year, according to the company. New product drops sell out in minutes and the company has been bolstered by venture capital funding from, among others, Drive, the finance arm of DraftKings.
Bandit’s co-founders include the New Jersey-born brothers Tim and Nick West, who both worked at the e-commerce startup Jet.com, and Ardith Singh, a former college hurdler who worked at the luxury activewear brand Bandier.
The brand’s start was fairly simple: Tim West, 31, who ran ultramarathons, couldn’t find a sock that stood up to his pooling sweat, so in October 2020, he made his own. A key innovation? Bandit placed its logo on the sock’s front, which was ideal for when photos of chic and impressive Bandit wearers showed up on social media. In November 2021, Nick West, 36, and Ms. Singh, 41, joined him in the endeavor.
“We wanted to do it in a way where it was actually building relationships and emotional connections with the running community, so that they become the megaphones,” Nick West said.
To wit: Bandit has worked with run clubs, sponsored athletes, set up pop-up shops at marathons and run events out of its shops. A membership program was created in which members get perks like early access to limited drops and discounts on Bandit gear for a $125 annual fee.
By the end of 2022, Bandit had opened its brick-and-mortar shop in Greenpoint and had launched apparel — race crops, compression shorts, sports bras — for which Ms. Singh sought inspiration from vintage runway creations.
“I get inspired by late ’80s, ’90s dress shapes, thinking how that could inform a race crop in a beautiful, feminine way,” she said, citing inspiration drawn from Prada, Alaïa and Calvin Klein. She looked away from the classic black, or high-visibility colors of the major brands, like Nike and Lululemon, choosing a palette that better reflected the urban environments where most runners run.
That aesthetic is paired with technical aspects that appeal to serious runners, like compression, moisture wicking and support.
“People joke about how they’re too cool for school,” said Garrett Burger, 35, who runs marathons and is a fan of the brand. “Then there are the performance aspects you can’t deny.”
Unprompted, Bandit’s acolytes frequently bring up the brand’s pockets as a reason to convert immediately.
“If you’re wanting pockets, they’ve got them,” said Tessa Travis, 37, a creative producer. “And that’s so clutch for running clothes.”
“Similar to how I don’t like feeling my clothing while I’m running, I also don’t like to feel my phone bouncing on my body,” said Makayla Karr-Warner, 29, a portfolio manager. “There’s a phone pocket in the back section of the sports bras. It’s such a convenient place to put it.”
More than any aspect of its design, however, the scarcity of the brand’s items may be what makes it fashionable, with the company developing into something along the lines of the Supreme of running.
“They have exclusivity around them,” said Freya Lindvall, 24, a member of the Dashing Whippets run club in New York. “They don’t constantly have pieces in stock.”
Scarcity is “not our entire model,” Nick West said. “There’s a piece of it,” he added, but he said the company has “staple products that are always meant to be available for people.”
“It feels like I’m part of this club,” Ms. Karr-Warner said of owning the elusive Bandit gear.
That club’s elite nature can, for some, extend to the runner’s abilities, which the company seemingly encourages. A Bandit billboard placed strategically near the halfway point of the New York City Marathon’s scheduled route in the weeks leading to the race referenced runners seeking personal records: “PRs Don’t Run Themselves.”
That didn’t sit well with everyone.
“I think it’s a very elitist, exclusive group,” said Ray Walker, 24, who is training for his fourth marathon. “I think that sometimes people can feel intimidated by how fast they go. I don’t know if they’re necessarily pace inclusive.”
The company’s founders, however, are happy to push the envelope.
“Our mission: evolve running,” said Tim West, clarifying that he was talking about things around the sport, rather than changing the actual act of running.
“We’re speaking to the community, better aligning to how they experience the sport,” Nick West said.
This month, in conjunction with the New York City Marathon, Bandit will take its next major step, releasing a collection with Asics, the Japanese apparel brand. For the first time in its 75-year history, Asics is letting another brand take the wheel for performance products, placing its logo on Bandit’s designs. A shoe collaboration between the companies is expected in 2025.
“They’re tapping Bandit to do something that resounds in terms of coolness,” Tim West said. “It’s a larger audience than we can reach.”
Naturally, there is a risk when niche brands experience rapid growth, with consumers always looking for something newer, better and, in the case of modern running apparel, more exclusive.
“It’s getting a little too oversaturated,” Cole Yi, 31, a consultant who runs a few times a week, said of Bandit. “In New York, if you go to any run club, like 70 percent of people will be wearing the socks.”
As for Ms. Ellefson, the marathoner who was run off the road, she is unsure if she will renew her membership. The Bandit sports bra she wore in Chicago “chafed the hell out of my back,” she said. She said she is looking to brands like Saysky and Lululemon, and recently sold a pair of her Bandit shorts on Poshmark.
“It’s just a logo,” she said. “What’s the next Bandit?”
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