Satisfy, Currently Running, and the Fight Over Running's Aesthetic

Copycats, brand building, borrowed references, and $260 shorts. Oh my.

In 2008, artist Shepard Fairey sent a cease-and-desist to graphic designer Baxter Orr, who’d made a riff on Fairey’s iconic Obey poster with a SARS mask over it. Ironically, Shepard Fairey’s entire career was built on other people’s work, from Andre the Giant’s likeness to an Associated Press photograph that became the iconic Obama “Hope” poster. Fairey had drawn from dozens of other artists without attribution (and was eventually sued for it). But when Orr borrowed from him, Fairey called him a “parasite.”

Why do I mention this? Well, earlier this week, the founder and creative director of French running brand Satisfy, Brice Partouche, publicly shared a DM exchange with Nash Howe of Currently Running to his Instagram story. At the center of the callout was Partouche’s frustration that Currently was ripping off Satisfy and selling it at a lower price point. He called Currently…you guessed it…”parasites.”

I think the space is big enough for both Satisfy and Currently. This might be a bit niche, but the way it played out brought up some interesting conversations around Satisfy, brand building, and the state of “running culture”.

Not the best look

Currently vs. Satisfy

Currently is relatively new running brand started by Nash Howe. In interviews he tends to come across as earnest, passionate about running, focused on community, and acknowledges inspirations from the other big players in the space. The brand has grown quietly and organically over the last year. On the product side, their shorts use similar fabrics and have a strikingly similar silhouette and palette to Satisfy’s Space-O line at significantly lower price points. Did they take heavy inspiration from brands like Satisfy and Bandit? Yes, pretty clearly (Nash has said as much). Is their belt a (very) close replica of Satisfy’s Space-O belt? Hard to argue otherwise.

Satisfy on the left, Currently on the right

But Satisfy didn’t invent Space-O. They trademarked a brandable name for a fabric that other brands can source. Same with Ghost Fleece, which is Polartec Alpha Direct, and Auralite, which is Deltapeak. Their Ghost Fleece is effectively a “reinterpretation” of pieces brands like Senchi Designs have been making for years. The creative work wasn’t inventing new materials. It was mythologizing and branding existing ones. They’re impressively good at it, but it’s not the same as ownership or exclusivity.

Senchi on the left, Satisfy on the right

Currently’s approach, a scrappy operation building a brand through social and direct relationships, is becoming more common. The barriers to entry to create a brand keep dropping and methods of sourcing fabrics, managing factory relationships, and running DTC stores, are increasingly more accessible. When I look at their website I see the inspiration from Satisfy and others, but I don’t really see Satisfy. But I don’t see anything particularly unique, either. I see a brand pulling from the same broad pool of references that a lot of running brands are pulling from right now: muted palettes, split shorts, similar fabrics, similar imagery. Does Currently feel meaningfully differentiated? Not especially. But it’s far from alone in lacking a truly unique, strong identity.

If a smaller brand iterates faster on product details and offers a similar silhouette at half the price, that’s not “parasitism”. That’s market pressure. Some of the feedback I’ve seen even suggests that Currently’s shorts, despite using similar fabrics, are actually better than their Satisfy equivalent.

Credit Where It’s Due

Partouche founded Satisfy with a vision: running as creative act, not a competitive performance grind. The running industry at the time was, in his words, “all performance, winning, and bravado.” Satisfy offered a new visual approach to a somewhat stagnant industry. Their MothTech t-shirts, cotton with “body-mapped” ventilation holes (whether you love them or think they’re ridiculous), are genuinely iconic in the sport-meets-streetwear aesthetic.

The most divisive shirt in running

Satisfy genuinely resonates with a lot of runners. Their aesthetic feels casual rather than obviously athletic and you can (maybe) wear it to a coffee shop without looking like you just came from a track workout. The people who love Satisfy really love it. They’re not being duped; they’re buying into a brand that speaks to how they see themselves as runners.

I get the appeal. Anytime I’m in a running shop, I enjoy checking out the new Satisfy releases, and I think they’ve done more to push running style forward than almost any brand in the last decade. I just can’t personally justify the cost, and some of the styles just don’t feel me.

The same things that resonate with one group can alienate others. Satisfy’s branding and communication has put it in a category of apparel that says something about you if you wear it, and not everyone is comfortable with what it says. I showed up to a Satisfy-affiliated run club in London once and, while I had a great time, the implied status related to wearing $1000 worth of running kit felt weird. The brand has cultural baggage that not every runner wants to carry, especially at $260 for a pair of shorts. Currently’s Satisfy-esque aesthetic at a cheaper price point, without the Satisfy brand baggage, makes it a perfectly viable alternative for a lot of people.

The brand is full of borrowed references. Partouche has said that he “likes to move between cultures,” and the elements people tend to associate with the Satisfy draw from decades of fashion, military surplus, punk, Americana, and streetwear influences. The whole “French fashion brand co-opting punk and Americana for overpriced tee shirts” doesn’t sit well with everyone, but what Satisfy did, and did well, was take those references and build them into a new identity attached to running.

While there’s plenty to debate about how brands choose to copy or innovate, this is how fashion has always functioned. There’s an interesting principle called the “piracy paradox” that posits that the fashion industry thrives because of remixing, referencing and copying, not despite it. When a design gets widely copied, it loses its cool, which pushes the originator to make something new. And, enough versions of a particular look need to exist for people to recognize it as a trend in the first place. The fashion cycle ends up being moved forward by copying, not killed by it.

I think the fact that other brands are riffing on the aesthetics Satisfy helped define, is evidence that Satisfy succeeded. It’s probably annoying, and may or may not be cutting into Satisfy’s bottom line, but it’s also inevitable. It’s a signal to keep pushing forward, not a reason to publicly attack a one-person operation.

There’s a whole swathe of running brands that exist mostly as graphic tees, similar branding, and an Instagram account with motion blur photography. There is a lot of homogeneity across the “cool” running world, in both branding and product. There are only so many colors and ways to design a singlet or a pair of shorts. Most of these brands won’t succeed because, well, building a successful brand is hard, regardless of where your inspiration comes from. Currently will be up against the same odds. But remixing, experimenting, trying and failing is what pushes everyone forward.

This is via Currently, but really, could be almost anyone

Ironically, Partouche used a Fugazi lyric in one of his callouts about Currently. Fugazi was an influential punk band in large part because of how far they took their anti-commercial ethos, famously capping ticket prices at $5-10 and refusing to sell merch. Using their words to defend $260 shorts is…a choice.

It’s easy to celebrate borrowing and remixing when you’re the one doing it, and harder when someone else does it to you.

Who cares?

The running market has gotten big enough to hold a lot of different subcultures. Satisfy and Currently can coexist. So can fans of Tracksmith, Bandit, Janji, tiny sunglasses, Evo SLs, and the people who don’t care what brands are currently “cool” in New York, London, or LA. Add to that the people that love the running aesthetic but aren’t runners at all, and you’ve got quite a melting pot.

The “cool” running world remains a small fraction of the overall running market, which is actually dominated by Nike, Adidas, Brooks, Hoka, and the other big performance brands that most runners buy from their local run specialty shop.

But the fact that I’m even writing about a DM exchange between two brands most runners have never heard of says something about the influence this segment has. Fashion is a legitimate component of sport and activity, and the people who care about it care a lot. What happens in this corner of the running market tends to influence what shows up at bigger brands and retailers a few years later.

Satisfy helped define a look that’s been filtering into other brands and the broader market for a decade. Conversations like this one, even if they feel a bit like too-online, made-for-Substack inside baseball, can be interesting in the long view.

Let’s All Play Nice

None of this needed to be public. Public beef with a scrappy upstart almost never goes the way the bigger brand hopes. And it rarely looks good when the person calling someone a “parasite” has built their own brand, in part, from appropriation.

Ten years ago, if you wanted running gear that didn’t look like traditional running gear, Satisfy was one of the few options. Now, there’s a whole ecosystem of brands at different price points, different attitudes, different communities. The question for Satisfy isn’t whether Currently is copying them. It’s whether they can maintain their relevance in a market that’s gotten bigger, messier, and more competitive.