ASICS RUNOVATION - REMKO vs. REMCO

I see. Was that because they thought it was cool or are they completely mental?
Remco: They were all completely mental and I tried to talk them out of it, but didn’t succeed! No seriously, they thought it was cool to combine high fashion with core performance.

I’ve been a big advocate of performance stuff myself. I’ve even been wearing the ASICS Busselton and the Noosa. People stare at your feet alright but they’re not thinking you’re ‘ahead of the game’. Have you tried such a thing?
Remko: Definitely! It’s much nicer to discover something new than to keep wearing the same retros.Coincidentally, I found a pair of Gel Busseltons in our sample shop and got great reactions while wearing them. Some people really thought they looked cool, so maybe there is a bright future for performance sneakers.

I know it signals modern high-tech, but why do new running shoes need all that Spiderman mesh and silver strapping? Is that really what runners want?
Remco: For runners, the functionality is more important than the look. It is important to communicate the technology and that’s why they have this high-tech look.

So why is it cool to put the modern performance upper materials on a vintage shoe? Is there a message about the origins of sneakers?
Remko: From time to time we have these intimate dinners, called the ‘tapas sessions’, which we have with a small group of ASICS like-minds. One time we were talking about future trends. We already knew that our performance shoes were getting more and more popular in Scandinavia, but we also knew that it was way too early for sneaker heads to adapt this look, so I came up with the idea to keep the retro styles and make a performance translation...