Inside The Monumental Rise (and Rise) of HOKA
In 2007, Nico Mermoud was in the lead of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (better known as UTMB), the Super Bowl of ultramarathon racing, a grueling 101.3-mile long race. For 15 of the 22 hours and 30 minutes it took him to finish, Mermoud ran strong. Then, in the 16th hour, the fatigue set in. One of his crew members, Jean-Luc Diard, who watched Mermoud cross the finish in third place, knew Mermoud’s footwear was largely to blame.
What Diard, a longtime Salomon executive, saw on the trails would eventually become the brainchild of the pair, in HOKA. They launched their new brand in 2009, having developed the highly cushioned, lightweight shoe that Mermoud’s legs were calling out for on the trails at UTMB.
Fifteen years later, HOKA sponsors UTMB. And as I walk around picturesque Chamonix, a typically sleepy French mountain town packed with punters excited to watch UTMB’s relentless races through the Alps’ unforgiving terrain, HOKA shoes seemingly cover every square meter of pavement.
HOKA’s ascent from small-time disruptor to leading trail-running brand has played out in record time: within 13 years its sales exceeded a billion dollars and has not stopped growing (in the 2024 fiscal year, net sales increased 27.9% to $1.807 billion). The secret to HOKA’s success? Engineering.
“I was working in retail when I first saw HOKA’s really colorful, really thick shoes and I didn't get it. But then the second I tried them on… it opens your eyes in terms of what a shoe can do,” Bekah Broe, director of product for performance footwear at HOKA, tells me during UTMB. “The shoes feel paradoxical in the coolest way. You don't think something so big and cushioned can be so light and fun.”
The signature bulky shape of HOKA’s early shoes (such as the Mafate and Stinson Evo) came from a stacked sole created to absorb the impact of uneven terrain and propel runners forward. It’s since been further engineered and refined, but it's that same curved, oversized sole that makes its newest trail shoes so damn fast.
The Tecton X 3 is the most advanced of HOKA’s trail running shoes yet. It was inaugurated at UTMB by way of a party in a cable car station, first, and many podium finishes, second, and having me — a fairweather runner whose take-out consumption would worry any serious ultra-marathon athlete — take the shoes for a spin, third. Slipping into the Tecton X 3’s sock-like upper for the first time, the springiness of its high-energy-return sole was immediately noticeable walking around the hotel lobby. But once I got to the mountains and started gaining some speed the shoe came into its own.
Bouncing around at high altitude paying far too little attention to the sharp rocks and steep inclines I was traversing, the shoes saved me from certain embarrassment several times. When steep slippy surfaces looked certain to throw me onto my derrière, the Tecton X 3’s Vibram Megagrip sole hung on for dear life, and with each sloppy moment where my ankle looked certain to roll, my foot bounced back onto the trails. I later learned this is due to the shoe having two carbon plates wrap around the outside of the sole, acting like a springboard whenever the side of the foot hits an object. I ended the run looking like a somewhat accomplished trail runner — quite the achievement.
Jim Walmsley, last year’s winner of UTMB (and someone who, unlike me, pushes the shoe to its limit), worked closely with HOKA’s team to develop the Tecton X 3. Broe says they made over a hundred prototypes for him before landing on the perfect trail-conquering recipe: “He can articulate things we can't guess because he uses the shoe so much and is on his feet for such intense periods.”
Hayden Hawks, another runner in HOKA’s vast network, also often provides the brand with feedback: “HOKA is constantly trying to improve the product, and they listen to the input we give them,” he tells me ahead of winning the CCC race at UTMB 2024. “The shoes are at the top of the line, in my opinion, and I wouldn’t want to run in anything else.”
Sure, having runners test out a product before it comes to market isn’t a new concept but HOKA has close proximity to top-ranking trail runners that its competitors don’t. And it has a few in its own ranks: Vincent Bouillard, a senior manager in product engineering and innovation at HOKA, pulled off a shock win at UTMB’s headline race this year.
When HOKA launched, few could have predicted this maker of bulbous footwear would become a leading trail shoe brand in fifteen years. Even Broe, whose job it is to create the shoes, admits HOKA’s first oversized models were “totally weird” compared with the regular-sized running models dominating the market: “One of the fun things HOKA now does is embrace that weirdness. It's kind of a core part of how we design and build products,” she continues.
As if its soaring profits weren’t validation enough, HOKA’s unmistakable presence on the feet of runners across UTMB 2024 is proof of its monumental and unexpected rise to the top of the trail industry.
Trawl through running blogs during HOKA’s inception and weird is a comparably delicate descriptor: “a cross between a moon boot and a running shoe,” a “nearly comical shoe”, “goofy clown shoes”… even today they are occasionally called ugly by the press. But HOKA’s having the last laugh: while its shoes were helping athletes win the toughest races, fashionable running brand Satisfy was hosting a UTMB pop-up that had to be restocked daily with its HOKA collaboration as the stylish trail shoe constantly sold out.
The pendulum of fashion has truly swung in HOKA’s favor, making the once-ridiculed girthy shape of its shoes a fashion trend. But don’t let that distract you from its immense trail innovations; as Travis Wiseman, director of product for lifestyle footwear at HOKA, previously told Highsnobiety: "We aren’t building products for the likes of Bella Hadid, but if they’re wearing them anyway we aren’t going to complain.”
You might see HOKA popping up on the feet of taste-making celebrities, launching big-name fashion collaborations, and even walking the runway, but UTMB, high in the French mountains, is its true stomping ground.
