Footwear Insight

S eattle-based Brooks Running wants to keep it simple. That's the reason, the brand says, for a spring '21 move to bring neutral and support shoes with the same cush- ioning profiles into the same shoe families. Both retailers and runners had difficulty parsing the differences between models like the Glycerin and Transcend, the brand said, which offered similar rides and cushioning and only varied in whether they were neutral or support. Going forward, the brand will classify shoes by the ground-feel experience — Float (what Brooks calls more cushioned styles) and Feel (the brand's term for lighter-weight shoes with less between the ground and the runner) — and then allow runners to select neutral or support versions. The Launch and Glycerin franchises will be the first "super franchises" to debut. For spring, the Transcend shoe will be renamed Glycerin GTS 19 and will sit alongside the Glycerin 19, and the Ravenna model will be renamed the Launch GTS 8, sitting alongside the Launch 8. (The Transcend and Ravenna names will be retired.) To designate support shoes, Brooks shoes will use the GTS acronym (formerly for "Go-To Shoe") that the brand has long appended to its Adrenaline support shoe; now, it says, GTS will stand for "Go-To Support." Brooks says the move will allow the firm to concentrate its marketing dollars on fewer models, and drive brand equity in-store. —Jennifer Ernst Beaudry C iting safety concerns amid a resurgence of COVID-19 cases, the Atlanta Shoe Market and MICAM America and MAGIC trade shows have can- celed their August and September physical trade shows. The Atlanta Shoe Market had been scheduled for Aug. 22-24 in Atlanta. The MAGIC shows, which include MICAM Americas, WWD Magic, Project and Sourcing @ Magic, had been planned for Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. (The show had already been postponed from its initial dates of Aug. 17 to 19.) Here, Kelly Helfman, president of WWDMagic, Project Womens, MICAM Americas and Sourcing at Magic, talks about next steps. 1. What spurred you to cancel the physical show? Our fashion community is at the heart of every decision we make, so with this guiding us, the decision was two- fold. There are continued concerns around health and safety, and we felt that with this unknown — while we wished and hoped it would have been in a better place — this was the right decision to make now in order to protect our community. Additionally, since we have always planned to launch both a live and digital event this fall, and our digital event launch is well underway with brand webinar trainings happening each week and retailers already regis- tered for the event, we knew that we were still offering our community a great environment to conduct busi- ness, connect and learn, much like we do at our live events. 2. What will change, if anything, about the virtual event in light of the physical event being canceled? While we had already planned on a robust lineup of educational content for the digital event, we will be shifting even more from our live event into our digital trade event, [with] more educational seminars and more retail resources. Expect this in addition to the already planned curated content — which is exclusively available to our digital marketplaces — shop- pable trend report, themed editorial roundups, and product look books to name a few. 3. Are plans still in place for a physical show in early 2021? Yes! We have a lot of great ideas to amplify the physical experience at our show in the new year, so when we debut both the physical and digital events together in early 2021 expect to see even greater enhancements. —Jennifer Ernst Beaudry Franchise Model Trade Shows Canceled BROOKS UPDATE THE FOOTWEAR EYE LEAVE NOTHING TO CHANCE ® since 1996 Brooks Glycerin 19 footwearinsight.com July 2020 ~ Footwear Insight • 7

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