Photo courtesy Hoka
In southeast France, situated within towering Alpine peaks in the low valley ground created by the River Arve, hums the town of Chamonix. With all the classic appeal of a European mountain village, Chamonix isn't a place you'd say is difficult to describe. It's got chalet-style architecture, classic Savoyarde fare like fondue and tartiflette, glitzy hotels, and gondolas that quickly send visitors from town to the heights above. Chamonix has its claims to fame too—the town hosted the first Winter Olympics in 1924 and it was here that mountain climbing originated as a sport with the 1786 climb of Mont Blanc by Michel-Gabriel Paccard.
More recently, one of the day's most notable outdoor footwear companies emerged from the region: Hoka. Hoka's Haute-Savoie origins are easy to miss amidst the avalanche of mainstream popularity—the "Our Story" page on Hoka's website makes no mention of them—but probe deep enough and it becomes clear that the spirit the company was founded on—a commitment to mountain running, and doing things differently—a spirit that could perhaps only bloom in a place like Chamonix, is what's led to and what remains key to Hoka's current success.
On paper, that success looks like $1.8 billion, which is what Hoka made in 2024. But you don't need the quarterly figures to get a sense of how the brand is currently doing; you just need to pay attention to what shoes everyone's wearing. Runners love Hoka shoes, but so do nurses, restaurant workers, and baggage handlers. Even if you don't own a pair of Hokas, chances are your parents do (or they've at least asked you about them).
But back in 2009, the thick, comfy soles that make the shoes so addictively comfy were an unproven concept in the minds of Nico Mermoud, Jean-Luc Diard, and Christophe Aubonnet, a trio of product developers based in Annecy, France, just down the way from Chamonix. Running was in its minimalist moment (Vibram Five Fingers and bare feet were big), but they had a hunch that oversized foam outsoles would be perfect for running fast down the trails up the valley and in other ranges around Europe. Other trail runners agreed, setting Hoka off on its path toward worldwide influence at a breakneck clip.
When brands get big, they run the risk of alienating the original crowd that helped them along at the start, of forgetting where they came from. If you were looking for proof that Hoka hasn't, all you'd have to do is head to Chamonix at the end of summer.
American climber Marc Twight famously called Chamonix the "death sport capital of the world." For skiers, it's the European ski town of vintage posters; for climbers, it's the perfect base camp for attempts on Mont Blanc and the steep-walled Aiguilles. But at the end of August, there's no question who the place is for: trail runners. There are droves of them, and they're all in town for UTMB, the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc. It's the world's premier trail running event, challenging entrants to circumnavigate the Mont Blanc Massif on a rugged course that winds through France, Italy, and Switzerland over 106 miles and 33,000 feet of elevation gain as fast as they can. Only the best qualify for a bib, and still the DNF rate over the last decade is roughly 36%—in 2024 a total of 1,760 runners from a field of 2,761 did not make it to the finish line.
But UTMB is more than a grueling footrace, it's a week-long festival that draws thousands of runners to the valley to compete and spectate. In trail runner parlance, "UTMB" refers to the big 106-mile race and also (somewhat confusingly) the entire event, which consists of eight races of varying routes and distances. A village of brand-activated cabins pops up in the Place du Mont Blanc where runners can connect with brands and pros. There are group runs, product launches, and plenty of parties. In an essay about Chamonix, Jon Krakauer wrote that "fully half the people walking past will be clomping along in climbing boots and have a coil of 8.8-millimeter perlon slung over a shoulder," but during UTMB running hydration vests that are more in vogue than anything else.
Hoka's aura amongst it all is impossible to miss. The company became the footwear and apparel sponsor of UTMB in 2022 and last year it upgraded its role to title sponsor through 2028. "Ultimately we are deeply committed to growing the trail community and category and there's really no better partner than UTMB," says Erika Gabrielli, Hoka's vice president of global marketing. It's easily a more fitting match than the previous title sponsor, Dacia, a Romanian car company you've probably never heard of.
Novelty and disruption helped Hoka to its fast start and playing things safe is not in the strategy book.
Anyone who visited Cham during race week experienced the new role firsthand. Hoka flags and banners seemed to be fluttering all over town, and the giant archway in front of the 12th-century Benedictine church that marked the start and finish of events served as a temporary monument that prominently displayed the UTMB's patrons with Hoka at the head. During the race, up at the bottom of the Col du Bonhomme, just past Notre Dame de la Gorge cathedral, Hoka's winged logo glowed to meet runners as they approached the race's 30km marker in the darkness and a tube of neon-lit arches served as a portal to the first big climb of the course.
A little more behind the scenes, Hoka's everyone-in spirit has already yielded an important change at UTMB: prize money. The company's sponsorship allowed UTMB's organizers to more than double the reward for athletes who win UTMB—from about $10,400 to $21,500—and to increase the purses of the other races at the event and in other UTMB World Series races around the world. Gabrielli says that it's Hoka's hope the cash injection can help foster more professional racers, many of whom keep regular jobs to support their competing.
That new cash is divided evenly between women and men, and that's right in line with Hoka's strong emphasis on inclusivity, to which the company attributes a lot of its recent growth. "We are continuously expanding our HOKA community, ensuring that our products resonate with a wide range of consumers and athletes," says Robin Green, the company's president. "Our growth has come from so many different types of people finding that Hoka’s signature comfort works for a wide range of activities and uses." This is the growth that's become so easy to see with our own eyes; Hoka's not just for runners anymore.
But running has always been the center of Hoka's product offering, and the company has undoubtedly benefited from the post-pandemic running boom. The company's not shy about embracing the non-runners who've shown up by meeting them where they are—nurses and restaurant workers started wearing the Bondi, so Hoka made a slip-resistant versionthat also comes in subtler, work-friendly colors. The company has also worked on style-focused collabs with Brain Dead, END., and Nicole McLaughlin. These are pathways to new audiences and also, sometimes, design breakthroughs—a recent collab with Satisfy resulted in a shoe so distinct that the it's getting a permanent place in Hoka's trail lineup.
According to Green, inclusivity's partner in Hoka's billion-dollar formula is innovation. Novelty and disruption helped Hoka to its fast start and playing things safe is not in the strategy book. If it were, there wouldn't have been oddities like the strange-looking TenNine with its extended heel or the more recent Speed Loafer, which put a leather dress shoe upper on a trail running sole. It's not all about being different, it's about making new things—Hoka was also the first to put two parallel carbon fiber plates in a trail running shoe with the Tecton X, and that shoe was met by runners with high praise.
"Hoka would not exist if it was a brand that thrived off of trying to follow trends or adapt to what is working in the market at that moment."
It's the primary way Hoka continues to support its original core in trail running: making them shoes. Good ones. At the 2024 UTMB, Hoka launched the Tecton X 3, which presented more of a design overhaul over previous models. "We needed to do something that was bigger, badder, more joyful and propulsive in terms of the experience," says Rebekah Broe, a senior director of product in charge of performance footwear. To do it, the footwear team tapped Jim Walmsley, a Hoka athlete who in 2023 became the first American man to win UTMB—and set a course record of 19:37:43 in the process.
"We did so many different variations in testing with Jim"—more than 100—"where we looked at the different widths, different lug heights, different thicknesses and stack heights of foam," Broe says. Walmsley wanted the shoe to be lighter, bouncier, and softer, and Hoka's designers were able to pull tech over from the road racing side to make it so. He also came up with the integrated gator, which is outwardly the most obvious change from version two. Walmsley's preferences were distilled into the Tecton X 2.5, a shoe that, despite a limited public run, was really made just for him (and it was the shoe he won UTMB in). For the Tecton X 3, Hoka adjusted things to make the shoe work for more runners. "We take all that feedback and synthesize it and then find those little things that we can dial to make sure that everyone gets to enjoy that same experience that helps pull Jim first place across the line," Broe says.
It's a lot of resources to put into a single shoe that won't sell nearly as many pairs as a Bondi or Clifton. Trail running is growing but it's still far from as popular as road running. The barriers are easy to identify. Trail races simply can't be as big as road races for reasons of course safety and impact; consider that something like 10,000 runners compete in all eight UTMB races whereas the New York City Marathon hosts more than 55,000 (the NYC Marathon also has over 10,000 volunteers). Plenty of runners never enter a race, but the plain and obvious fact is that more people live near and spend their time on pavement and sidewalks than pebbles and singletrack.
But making shoes like the Tecton X 3 is precisely the sort of thing that put Hoka on the map. "Hoka would not exist if it was a brand that thrived off of trying to follow trends or adapt to what is working in the market at that moment," Broe says. There's still plenty more room on the trails, and it's clear from its participation in UTMB and its stance toward product development that Hoka aims to help runners find their way there. Inclusivity and innovation are the guiding forces at the company, but Broe also mentioned another principle that appears to be as embedded in the ethos: fun.
A little after noon on Saturday, 31 August 2024, the trail running community didn't feel small, not in Chamonix. The town was buzzing in preparation for the return of the runners and a crowd was gathering in the Place du Triangle de l'Amitié to welcome them. If people were looking at their phones as they walked and waited, it was more likely to refresh the race standings and time estimates of when the first finishers would show up than to check the news or scroll Instagram.
Ahead of the race, the story was all about Walmsley. The Arizona native had moved to France in 2022 to focus on racing UTMB, pulled off his 2023 win, and was aiming to top the feat by combining a repeat performance with his win at the Western States 100 earlier in June. Any celebrities who happened to be in Chamonix during race week would've been brushed aside for a glimpse of Jim. But from the endless list of circumstances and maladies that can end any UTMB bid, it was a nagging knee issue that compelled Walmsley to call it quits as he pulled into the checkpoint at Courmayeur, Italy during the night.
Before that moment, a runner passed him to take the lead and Walmsley recognized who it was, though even hardcore followers of the sport wouldn't have. It was an unsponsored runner named Vincent Bouillard—who also happens to be a senior manager of product engineering at Hoka. He finished the race in 19 hours, 54 minutes, and 23 seconds, the third-fastest course time yet.
Published 02-19-2025
