3 cool sneaker brands you’ve probably never heard of
Everyone and their mother knows Adidas, New Balance and the like, and everyone and their mother wears them. If you want to stand out, here are a few brands that are less well known but just as stylish.
The sneaker industry can be quite uninspiring, with Adidas and Nike on every corner, lots of New Balance and Asics, more and more Puma, and Salomon and On Running shoes here and there. But there are so many other options if you dig a little deeper. Here are three great brands that you may not have heard of yet, but that you should definitely check out.
1. Karhu
The famous three stripes actually featured on Karhu sneakers long before they became Adidas’s unmistakable trademark. Karhu is a Finnish company that was founded over 30 years before Adidas. After the 1952 Olympic Games in Finland, Adi Dassler is said to have entered into negotiations with Karhu. He allegedly acquired the rights to the branding for 1,600 euros and two bottles of whisky, as the brand manager at the time, Jukka Lehtinen, revealed to the Finnish tabloid «Ilta-Sanomat» in 2014. Today, an M – derived from the word «Mestari», meaning champion – adorns Karhu’s pretty sneakers instead.
Source: Instagram @karhu_jp
2. Gola
Hearing the name Gola probably won’t ring a bell. But a glance at the British brand’s iconic shoulder bag might make a light bulb go off in your head.
The Gola bag was extremely popular in the 70s and remains so to this day. But the brand’s speciality since it was founded in 1905 is, in fact, football cleats. So, it’s no surprise that today, with their sleek retro football look, Gola’s casual sneakers fit perfectly into contemporary fashion.
Source: Instagram @golaclassics
3. Norda
HBX described the Norda trail running shoe as a Porsche for your feet. Norda is a relatively new Canadian brand founded in 2020 by Willa and Nick Martire. The couple have succeeded where others have failed before, namely in making shoes from the ultra-light, ultra-strong Dyneema fibres. «Designed to prove that true sustainability is found in durability,» reads the bio on Norda’s unpretentiously aesthetic Instagram account. The shoe models are named after numbers and, like a Porsche, combine beauty and power.
Source: Instagram @nordarun
Header image: Norda
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Has endless love for shoulder pads, Stratocasters and sashimi, but a limited tolerance for bad impressions of her Eastern Swiss dialect.
