Interview with Jurian Elstgeest, founder of 4T2 Run
Words, Photography & Creative Direction: Morgan Barfield
Talent & Styling: Declan Tate
Propermag issue 42

Get lost. A literal reference to trail running, a nod towards the meditative quality of running as a mental sport and a symbol of 4T2’s obstinate determination to do footwear their own way. Get lost is the name of their trail shoe offering and the first shoe we were able to fawn over and test in the Proper office as well as on the muddy banks of the Mersey. The 4T2 team are definitely having a laugh about it over in their Netherlands headquarters and it’s these kinds of satirical branding decisions that sum up Jurians polarizing approach of taking the world of running seriously, head on and with a great deal of fun all at the same time. 

4T2 currently have four shoes in their roster, the aforementioned Get Lost, two road running shoes called the Weekday and a take-it-easy recovery run shoe called Sundays which has extra cushioning and will have a limited release in ‘shades of black’ soon. In their manifesto 4T2 talk less about designing and more about collating the needs identified within the every day runner and the components that fit these needs. The design part comes last, pulling all of this information together into something that makes sense, effortlessly serves the wearer and the fact they look so good seems almost secondary. This is a brand that leads with emotion not technicality in a way that makes everyone from seasoned athletes to technical trainer enthusiasts feel a part of the team. Unsurprisingly Jurian seems full of energy and more than ready to be distracted from doing his accounts by answering a few of our questions.

Hi Morgan!

Today is my finance day but I love to take some time to do fun things like these... here you go.

Hi Jurian! How has your week been and what have you been up to?

Haha just like every week since launching 4T2 it is hectic with highs and lows and constant chaos. What did I do this week so far? Everything and nothing at the same time. It feels like that because as a small team global startup, or actually scale up, we are a very tight team with a big 'DIY’' mentality, so I've been doing many many things from design, development, sales, marketing, finance, logistics and customer service, which is my favorite because you learn so much and it nice to interact with customers.

Where are you from and where are the rest of the team from?

we're from all over the place but Ebony (marketing) and myself are from the Amsterdam area. Aisha (design) is from Antwerp, John (development/sourcing/manufacturing) is an englishman in Malaysia and Stan (sales) is a Frenchman in the south of France.

You celebrated a 4T2 birthday recently with some virtual cake, how long has 4T2 been around?

Yeah we weren't even around to celebrate but it's been since september 2022 that we started shipping our first products. but actually I have been working on the brand, positioning, product concepts, design, development and setting up the company since early 2021. Together with Aisha I started the journey of working on unique product functionality and design which has been a very interesting journey since Aisha has a very strong point of view. I love it.

The word ‘ugly’ seems pretty centric to the brand, could you chat us through this - what

it means to the brand and why you’re celebrating it?

Yes, ugly is part of our DNA and it is a reference to your marathon finisher photo. If you have given it all, you know why. It's funny when we talk about it among runners, people come up with these really funny stories.. one time we were in Paris visiting a retailer and the question came up. I explained why and everyone started to laugh, one of the guys ran away and came back with a frontpage photo of him finishing the Paris marathon and looking 100% 'ugly.' It's also a bit of a jab at brands and runners shooting these pictures of effortless flying and beautiful smiling faces. For us running is a part of our life, it is ugly and beautiful at the same time.

On a day to day basis what does running mean to you personally?

Oh so much. I loved running track, I loved running on the football pitch, I loved running for pb's, I loved running till the wheels off in long distance triathlon and I love running trails. But on a simple daily basis I need to run (or bike or swim) in the early morning so the rest of my family and team can survive. I need to channel the energy, frustrations, chaos in my mind and I do it by movement. I love running in the early morning, before people start their day.

Words seem of great importance to your design ethos and we love the attention to detail with the various impactful words embossed into the soles of shoes or the trims. Can you talk us through the

approach behind this - it seems to have a really universal appeal!

We basically created the manifesto and our DNA tape from what we and runners around us feel about running. It is that simple. It is positive but sometimes also negative, because every runner gets injured at some point. and every runner ages or has a different goal than just to pb in the next race. We try to sneak in some of those pieces of DNA into our product and that is becoming a discovery.

From the outside it seems like community is everything to the brand but you started things in

a pandemic lockdown, how did you start to virtually cultivate a sense of community? What were the

challenges?

Yeah we actually got quite some negative feedback from people in the industry about our communication, product names, the ugliness, etc. but we felt it was going to be recognised by runners around the world. and fortunately it did, so now we have customers from all over the globe and they buy multiple shoes, the caps, the apparel, because they identify with what we do. It was quite a gamble but I just felt so strongly about what we do because I believed in it and the response was the same from our global running friends.

You are doing lots of events in real life now, can you tell us about the social tours you have

planned, could Manchester be on the cards?

We want to do more of them, and will do so. and we want to come back to the UK! The runs are pretty evolutionary, it always ends up in good conversation and fun and we also want to stay a bit flexible with the runs so we can collaborate with like minded crews, brands, retailers, etc. 

You’re launching a new shoe which we had the great pleasure of shooting first - the all black

Sundays, can you tell us more about this new design, any idea when it is launching?

Yes! From day one we had the plan to create Sundays as your easy going Sunday morning running shoe. softer platform, 9mm drop, smoother transition, soft upper and very specific design and color usage. We started with 'shades of grey' which is my absolute favorite color. next is 'shades of black' which simply reflects the darker winter runs and no surprise… there will be a 'vintage white' version coming in spring next year. We don't do 'collections' because that does not fit our goal to operate more responsibly as a company. We do production runs based on our concepts, mixed with runner input and feedback... so we go with the flow, obviously never wanting to lose our edge.

Your shoes are very visually pleasing but you have a substance over style approach that is really

refreshing. Do you think the two go hand in hand or will you always prioritize comfort and

durability.

Very good question. That is absolutely the battle between Aisha and myself and it is a very healthy one. We seem to challenge each other on everything with respect to the person, so the outcome of our work is most of the time a beautiful balance of good looking product that needs to work well. We have some projects in the pipeline that will put us to the test.... ;-)

Why is accessibility so important to you as a brand?

Thanks for asking. We are inclusive, not exclusive. We do not want to be a luxury brand. We want to be with runners, among runners, as runners and we might have this little rebelliousness in our DNA that will always keep fighting the establishment.

What is next for 4T2?

World domination woh! No, on a serious note, we want to further explore our ideas about a responsible brand and business and we have some really strong ideas on modularity and how that can help us serve a worldwide audience of runners, wanting to be gone running.

To find out more about 4T2 head to their website at https://www.4t2run.com/

Clothing provided by Over Over https://overover.co/ and 4T2 Run.