Santoni Runs the New York Marathon in Dress Shoes as US Sales Climb 52 Percent

Italian footwear maker Santoni put three athletes through the New York City Marathon on Nov. 3 wearing its Easy Run lace-up, a 295-gram dress shoe the brand claims can cover 26.2 miles without breaking form. The stunt anchored a weekend of activations built around one commercial message: Santoni's US business is up 52 percent year-over-year, and the company wants that number to keep compounding.

Executive chairman Giuseppe Santoni framed the marathon play as deliberate provocation rather than a category entry. "I wanted to do something to provoke or something very out of the box to highlight our shoes," Santoni told FN ahead of the race weekend. "It's not like we want to start to do training shoes or running shoes. That's not a business that we are in. What we want to do is to show up at the marathon in a very Santoni way and to prove that our quality is so good that you can run a marathon in our shoes."

What did the activation involve?

The program began with a two-day pop-up in Manhattan's Meatpacking District on Oct. 30 and Oct. 31. The space sat at Washington Street and Little West 12th Street. It displayed the full Easy shoe collection alongside a curated selection of Santoni's bestselling men's and women's product.

On Friday, the district around the pop-up became an open-air stage. Flash mobs and traveling performers moved from the Meatpacking District through Central Park and Times Square. They finished at the Santoni boutique on Madison Avenue. The performers wore formal looks paired with Easy Run shoes, which the company said carried the collection's "philosophy of freedom and movement into the urban landscape."

The activation closed on race day with the three sponsored athletes running the course in the lace-up model.

What is in the shoe?

The Easy Run lace-up weighs 295 grams. Santoni said a unique rubber sole density makes it "one of the softest and lightest leather shoes in the market." The construction details matter for sourcing teams watching leather footwear lighter-weighting:

• Signature Arancio Santoni Sigillo stitching
• An invisible elastic system integrated into the upper
• Perforated nappa leather lining
• Memory foam insole
• Full Arancio Santoni sole

The specs position the shoe as a hybrid: dress-shoe materials with sneaker-derived comfort engineering. Santoni has no plans to enter performance running as a category, according to the chairman's own statement. The marathon served as a proof-of-quality demonstration for the core leather business.

How strong is the US business?

The chairman called the United States the brand's most important international market and a key driver of global growth. The 52 percent year-over-year gain spans both owned retail and wholesale.

"It's an incredible number to mention," Santoni said of the US growth.

Named wholesale doors performing well include Nordstrom, Saks, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. For vendors and brand partners, the split across those four retailers signals demand at both department-store tiers and luxury flagships.

Why is women's the growth engine?

The sharper number sits in women's. Santoni said the women's business is up nearly 85 percent over last year. "And we are starting to have some shops where our women's business is bigger than men's," he said.

Three doors already show that inversion:

• Saks Fifth Avenue, New York
• Neiman Marcus, Dallas
• Bergdorf Goodman

Santoni set a five-year target for that shift to scale. "My vision five years from now is that our women's offering will be three times larger than men's," he said. "But not because men's will decline, but because women's has the space to grow."

That is an announced intention, not a measured result, and the gap between 85 percent growth and a 3-to-1 women's-to-men's ratio implies sustained investment in women's design capacity, last development and retail floor space over multiple seasons.

What comes next?

The marathon activation closed with the brand's commercial case stated plainly: a 52 percent US increase, an 85 percent women's surge, and a 295-gram shoe carrying three athletes across five boroughs. Santoni will now look to convert that visibility into further share gains at Nordstrom, Saks, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman while building the women's assortment toward his five-year vision.