PARIS — A parallel calendar of sportswear and activations has emerged alongside Paris Men’s Fashion Week each June, with a steady stream of brand events across the city competing for buyers’ and consumers’ attention.
This season, Hoka used the week to both open sales of its new collaboration with Japanese retailer Beams and host a private dinner celebrating the partnership ahead of its global release July 31.
The dinner was positioned as a pause from the noise of a packed — and extremely hot — fashion week.
But the moment signaled more than a one-off event. It formed part of Hoka’s broader strategy to deepen its presence within the fashion week ecosystem and strengthen its positioning at the intersection of performance and lifestyle.
“We’ve gradually advanced and really pushed forward in terms of how the brand shows up in a key market at a key moment where buyers from all around the world and an audience is really embedded,” said Thomas Cykana, senior director of global collaborations and partnerships at Hoka. “This is really our biggest fashion week ever.
“It’s a kind of beautiful embodiment of how far we’ve come, knowing that we’re a brand originally from the Alps, coming back home to a certain degree,” he added. “It also happens to be where a lot of this project came together, meeting with the Beams team and really engaging over a couple of seasons, so it kind of felt right.”
The Hoka x Beams shoe.
The collaboration with Beams reflects Hoka’s relationship-led approach to partnerships, prioritizing long-term cultural alignment over short-term hype or celebrity-driven activations.
“We would be forcing and chasing if we took that stance,” Cykana said. “We’ve made our approach as natural and really as human as possible in order to make sure that the consumer — who is smarter now than ever before — is engaged by that emotional connection and experience.”
The co-branded product also marked a milestone moment for Beams, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. Long considered a cultural gatekeeper for international brands entering Japan, Beams has acted as both collaborator and validator within the partnership.
“They’ve been a great partner for us for almost a decade or more now,” Cykana said. “Japan has always been a really important market for us, and so working with Beams is truly an honor.”
Thomas Cykana (left) and Chris Hui (right) with guest at the Hoka x Beams launch.
For the footwear itself, the teams focused on creating a timeless expression anchored in one of Hoka’s most recognizable silhouettes.
“If Hoka were distilled down into one model, I think it’s the Bondi,” said Chris Hui, design director for lifestyle footwear at Hoka. “It’s the shoe that has stood for what really defined Hoka, as far as shape, proportion [and] feel.”
The collaboration was built around what Hui described as a balance between heritage and restraint, with Beams bringing a curatorial lens to color and material choices.
“To work on that model with Beams in an execution and a color palette that also felt timeless brought the best of both worlds together,” he said.
The resulting colorways draw on camo-inspired foundations in muted greens, creams and off-whites, with the Beams branding subtly embedded within the patterning.
“What I think is kind of cool about these shoes is we think about how products are perceived from 30 feet, from three feet, and from three inches,” Hui said. “From 30 feet away, it looks like a white and brown shoe. From three feet, you start to appreciate an organic graphic. And from three inches away, you start to discover hidden Hoka and Beams logos within the print. It’s rewarding the consumer.”
That layered design approach reflects a broader industry shift toward what designers increasingly describe as “discovery-based” product storytelling, where detail is revealed through proximity and engagement rather than immediate visibility.
The shoe itself remains fully rooted in Hoka’s performance DNA, even as it is positioned for lifestyle use.
“The fusion of performance and lifestyle is a space that we’re really comfortable in and is really pure for our brand,” Hui said. “It is the same shoe that we used as a performance silhouette and kept the integrity of the product entirely the same, but whether it’s with running shorts or cargo bottoms, the dynamic nature of this shoe is an embodiment of how we perceive lifestyle.”
Across both brands, curiosity emerged as the most consistent theme — not only in design, but in how products are meant to be experienced.
“There should always be a sense of curiosity in the products that we create,” Hui said. “Curiosity from our side when we’re designing, and curiosity from consumers. I want people to see something and think: I want to go touch it, I want to go put it on my feet, I want to go for a run in it.”
That thinking extends into retail strategy, where both companies increasingly view wholesale partners and stores as experiential environments rather than transactional points of sale.
“We think of ourselves as an experience design team, not just a product design team,” Hui said. “How do we attract them to the wall? How do they engage with the product? And what’s the experience they feel once they’re in?”
A view on the Hoka x Beams launch event.
Cykana echoed that perspective, framing retail as central to both credibility and discovery.
“Our wholesale accounts continue to be the backbone for credibility, authenticity, and that’s why we lean on them immensely to validate and really become the place in which discovery still happens,” he said.
The Paris Fashion Week showroom itself reflected that strategy, serving as both presentation space and business development platform during a week when buyers from key global markets were in the city.
While Hoka continues to expand its presence in fashion-adjacent contexts, the brand emphasized that its growth remains rooted in performance credibility and carefully chosen partnerships.
“The fusion of performance and lifestyle is a space that we’re really comfortable in and is really pure for our brand,” Cykana said. “It is the same shoe that we used as a performance silhouette and kept the integrity of the product entirely the same.”
