Original subtitles

Hi and warm welcome to the running apparel product presentation.

And Thommy, I know that we have quite an ambitious goal for running.

What is it?

Yes, we have a goal to establish Craft as a running brand.

And that goes for both apparel and for footwear.

And establishing Craft as a running brand doesn't mean just here,

it means all over the world.

And how do we plan to achieve that?

Well, we start by focusing on long distance running,

which is very important to us,

and we are targeting that group and that kind of runner.

Secondly, we are offering a broader array of garments,

a broader offer by combining the different categories.

We have within Craft.

And of course, today I can say that we have a head to toe offer.

We have a very good selection of footwear,

and we have since before a very wide and good selection of runners garments

for different kind of occasions, for trail running, for road running,

or for competitive running.

And then, which is quite new since a few years back,

we have a design strategy.

And a design strategy helps us to create garments with a common thread through it.

And also it helps us do things with a longer goal in sight.

That means that it helps us to make choices with fabrics, with colors, with prints,

that will help us to both have a design that you can say is Craft,

but also, which is the last point that we have, to align with a Craft circle,

which is our goal to be more sustainable,

to be more in line with producing better garments and better design.

And by that, traditionally we've been talking a lot about fabrics,

about recycled fabrics or recyclable fabrics,

but that is soon to be surpassed because today you're talking about

sustainable design or longevity in design, making you like the garments better.

The longer that you keep the garments in the loop, the better.

And that for sure is being inside our everyday work today

that we discuss what fabrics to choose, how many fabrics to do,

what kind of colors to do, how long can the colors live,

can we make the colors live for another season, two seasons.

And so from that perspective, we are working very hard with the Craft design strategy

together in the Craft circle.

And then last but not least, we're also looking into how can we mend the garments,

if the zipper is broken, can we change the zipper,

if we don't constructions that makes us possible to help to mend the garment,

to keep it in the loop, to keep it as a garment, a loved garment for a longer time.

Yeah, let's have a look at the market and the potential of the category.

Thommy, can you tell me how many runners are there?

There is a lot of runners, but if I start from the other side,

these estimates of different sports, I suppose you know tennis is a big sport in the world.

And there's about 87, 90 million tennis players around the world.

My sport, my favorite sport is football,

and you might think that football is the biggest sport in the world,

and it is to a certain extent, but it is about 265 million football players around the world.

Not surprisingly in Asia, table tennis has about 300 million players.

And then basketball has 450 million players.

And then finally running, estimates are there are about 600 million runners around the globe.

And the US has about 10% of those, so it's about 60 million people.

It's quite a considerable amount of people.

And if we have a look at these runners, when they participate in races,

what is the favorite distance to run?

Well, here is the scaling of all the different race lengths, and people have preferred lengths.

What might surprise you to a certain extent is that the two favorite distances is a half marathon and a full marathon.

And they consist of about 51, over 50% of the preferred runners prefer to run that kind of long distance.

And that's kind of tough.

That hands our focus on the long distance runner as well.

But if we look at our history or our heritage, what would you say that we can use when we establish us as a running brand?

Well, first of all, we are functional experts.

We have done this since the 70s.

I know that we've said that every time. We say it every time.

But I think that we sometimes forget.

We've been in this game for quite a long time.

We know the game.

It's in the walls in these houses that we have here in Borås and in Sweden.

And we have lots of experts around us, both in the office, but also with all our Craft friends around the world.

So we are functional experts.

And we also know sports.

We are doing sports extremely good.

We are collaborating with a lot of athletes, but also teams.

You see here a picture, I suppose most of you know of Ingmar Steenmark from the 70s, the world's best skier ever.

And Gunde Svan is another example in cross-country skiing who dominated in the 80s.

Today we're working with the Norwegian Olympic team, who's going to have our garments when they are entering the Olympic Arena in Paris.

And of course, as most of you know, we're working with the Swedish ski team, the Norwegian ski team, but also football clubs like the first league club in France, Toulouse, and the Swedish track and field team.

So we have a lot of varied sports that we work with world athletes.

So if we have a look at what's trending within the category of running right now, what can we see?

Well, we see a very strong trend of social running and running communities.

And this is not the traditional clubs that you might see, especially here in North Europe.

It is more of a social gathering, bigger cities, smaller cities.

It started in the bigger cities in Europe and in the US by people gathering in cafes or meeting up in certain stores and just went out for running.

And then maybe a coffee or a beer or something afterwards.

And this is spreading all over the world and also spreading down to smaller cities and smaller communities.

Together with this, we also see a trend where you actually have active coaching, run coaches taking care of, you know, everyday runners.

It's quite common if you're a professional athlete or a semi-professional athlete, but for casual runners, not so.

But you go to a course to learn how to run in the same way as you learn skiing.

And that is partially to improve your running, to run more efficiently, to run better and faster.

But as much, it is a way of avoiding injury, which will halt your running.

Yeah. And do we see any more trends?

Yeah, we see an extremely strong trend.

This goes in cycles, of course, but right now there is a strong trend of fashion moving into running and running moving into fashion.

And that can be both by doing fashionable clothes for running, but can also be the mix of different styles.

But you can see by H&M, the giant in the world with fashion, have their Move collection, which is a decent run collection and training collection.

I just recently saw Hoka is teaming up with fashion brand and clothing to create a high fashion range.

A year ago, we saw the New Balance teaming up with MiuMiu.

And then I think the most interesting thing I read about now was the Premier League club Crystal Palace has hired creative director to cater for that they make fashionable merchandise collection, high fashion merchandise collection, which is kind of cool.

And curious question. Is it any difference between men and women in running? It feels like a fairly equal sport.

When it comes to participants, it's probably pretty equal. But if we're looking from our end at spending, women are far ahead of men.

And women spend approximately 50% more than men. And you would think that, yeah, yeah, that's the clothing, that's the apparel, but the shoes, that's for guys. That's not true at all.

Women spend more money also on shoes. So overall spending in the run category, including footwear, women spend more than 50% more than men.

Another trend that we're seeing is the rise of smaller lifestyle brands.

Very limited offer, very trendy, very into these social kind of running. So they are having a little niche of their own.

Sometimes very technical, sometimes not technical at all, more of feeling, touch, and creating a story behind it.

This is pretty new. Normally they would cater for quite expensive prices. They're positioning them to quite premium, but there are varied kind of brands.

And I mean, some of the known ones would be like Satisfy Running from Paris, Tracksmith from the US, Bended Running from the US, Runamix, Optimistic Runners.

I mean, they're numerous and there are a lot of national brands, very small ones popping up all over the world.

But this is quite new that it's not just the big dragons, it's also very small, niched brands.

And what would you say sets us apart from those niched brands?

Well, sometimes we have a tendency of looking at ourselves as the equals of Nike and Adidas and Puma and the giants of the world.

But I think that in many parts of the world, we are rather seen as competitors to these niche brands.

Some of these niche brands are doing collabs, they are doing different kind of activities to gain a bigger crowd.

We, on the other hand, we have a great point of difference and that is that we can offer head to toe gear from footwear up until backpacks on all the gear around.

So we have a bigger offer both by different categories, but also within running.

And to certain customers of ours, that will be like a must that we have both footwear and apparel.

Yeah, and when it comes to the apparel part, why should one choose Craft apparel?

Well, one thing is that we can cater for all types of runners.

We have road and trail and when it comes to footwear, we're also categorizing road to trail.

And we also have the different levels, different price levels, different technical levels.

So we can cater for a wide array of runners.

And also, I would say that we offer modern outfits and commercial outfits for different types of runners by mixing footwear, running, training and sportswear apparel.

If we start to look at the road runner, when should I choose the Hypervent collection?

Well, the Hypervent collection is for the dedicated runner.

It is meant for running and all the garments are technically constructed for the dedicated runners.

And when choosing fabrics, we are choosing very specific fabrics.

For spring here, we choose lightweight fabrics.

We choose fabrics that doesn't absorb moist, that transfer moist very good.

So we increase the comfort for the runner.

We also add in different kinds of innovations to help the runner to perform better during spring.

It could be different kinds of perforations, could be use of fabric in different places, but to enhance the performance.

And the Hypervent, I must say, the color range is beautiful.

We are good at colors.

And for this range, we have muted colors for the men's collection, which might not be typically spring, but it is a beautiful commercial color range.

And for women, it is more of pastel, light pastel-y colors, really flirty colors.

And that makes it also fashionable, not just functional and innovative, it is also fashionable.

And last but not least, the fitting is a commercial fitting that suits a lot of people.

This is not the super race runners fit.

This is more of a fit for everybody.

And it is a bit looser and it will be a very commercial way of using the fitting.

And do you have any key silhouettes for the Hypervent collection?

Yeah, I think that if we are talking running, the key silhouette for men would be a singlet and a pair of runner shorts., short shorts.

And for women, it will be a short crop top or a sport top together with short tights.

That is the basic silhouette.

And then you can add a wind vest, a wind jacket, a Hypervent jacket, and of course, you will add caps or not depending on how you want to run.

But the key silhouette for running in general is the tank top or the singlet shorts and the singlet or the sport top together with short tights for women.

Yeah, let's have a look at our new concept for this season, the race day concept.

And I guess that the naming is pretty guiding here.

But, Thommy, when should I wear the race day collection?

Well, you already answered it, but it is for the race runner.

And it is with our race runners, our athletes in mind that we have created this collection.

It means that the fittings and the fabrics are slightly different from the Hypervent.

It's slightly more technical, but also the fittings are maybe a little bit more having in mind what you need for long distance race running.

When we've done this, we have a race kit.

We're thinking of a race kit, but this race kit will support the launch of Kype Pro, our real super shoe that we will launch later in spring, 25.

And the design of these garments, both when it comes to the technical design, will support and mimic what we're doing with the shoe.

But also the color design is going hand in hand with the design of the shoe.

So these will be closely connected.

With that said, the garments stand on their own.

I would say the singlets and the shorts in this collection is my personal favorite in the whole collection.

They're super technical and they really perform on their top.

I mean, we've been using laser cutting technique in a different way on the tops, on the singlets,

so that the slits created by the laser cutting is following the movement of the body,

releasing heat while opening and closing.

We also used super light, meshy kind of fabrics, almost like ripstop fabrics,

but super light, almost translucent fabric to reduce weight with shorts, with waistbands, with all kinds of details.

So it really performs at the top, but also it looks really awesome.

So these two silhouettes are really my absolute favorite garments in the whole collection for spring, 25.

I was just going into it, you can see part of it here on the picture,

that you have the perforated back on the sports top, but that is part of the topping.

So we've been using all these kind of airy mesh, plastics, mesh fabrics, and then also laser cut super light jerseys.

And we are also doing like meshy grippers, normally used in the bike collection for part of the details here as well, to make it stay in place.

And the key silhouettes when it comes to race day, I think that you've already picked your favorite items.

These are my favorite, you can see the pictures here.

It is the singlet for men and the shorts, and for women, I think it's a draw between the shorts and the short tights,

but then it's also the sports top, the short sport top, which is absolutely gorgeous.

Yeah, we covered most of the road runners here, so let's have a look at the trail concept and what we have there.

Yes, I said this is for the trail runner.

We have a momentum with footwear at the moment, with trail, but maybe especially with the road to trail, with the explorer shoe, for instance.

But we also have the Pure Trail shoe as well.

But we have a momentum here, and of course, these garments go hand in hand with this footwear momentum.

When it comes to road to trail, we don't have a specific collection for that, but that will go into a mix of the trail collection and the hypervent collection.

But again, we have a very strong momentum today with that, and this is supporting that.

These garments are developed together with our athletes.

We talk to the athletes, they give us feedback, and we have for this season created a new t-shirt and a new singlet,

and we've sort of tweeted since we removed some stuff, but also considering our design strategy,

we have decreased the number of fabrics being used in it, and we have reduced the weight.

But then just by using a knitting technique, almost mimicking ripstop, we keep it a very strong fabric needed for the trail segment.

And then we have a completely new piece, which is the hydration vest, which is a trail piece that we've been developing both with the Craft Run team and also other runners within the Craft family.

And we've done a really good hydration vest with a five and a half liter backpack to it.

Yeah, and if you should pick out the key silhouettes for the trail runner, what would that be?

Well, that will be the t-shirt and the singlet, whether it's t-shirt for men, singlet for women, or vice versa, would be more or less the same.

And also the short tights, the new short tights, or the lightweight shorts, the trail shorts that we have, which is really fantastic piece.

And I think both goes for men and women. I think it's just a matter of taste whether you, a guy will run in short tights or shorts, and the same for women.

And then you can see on the picture here, we also have the new hydration vest.

Yeah, and then we should not forget Essence from training wear, which is a big part of our total range that we offer for the runner.

Thommy, what can you say about the Essence line and when should one use that?

Well, the essence is for the everyday runner. That's what we're aiming for.

I would say that essence is the most important commercial part of the whole run collection.

This is suitable for everybody, everybody from the startup runner to actually quite good runners can use the essence line.

It is very good. And the garments are very versatile and they are created for multi-purpose, but they are exceptionally good also for running.

So I think this will be our most important and the biggest chunk of the run collection for most customers.

And it is great value for money for sure.

So the price range is slightly lower than hypervent and trail, giving it a very big commercial appeal.

Yeah, I think that we can conclude that we have something for every runner, no matter how often, how far, how fast or where one runs.

So we would like to thank you all for watching this running session and good luck with your sales for SS25.