Hi, I’m Christian Brecheis and one of the things that makes me truly happy is to photograph running. It’s most rewarding when working with ambitious amateurs, anyone who is trying to find the balance between how much to push themselves and how much to just enjoy the sport. Personally, the motivating thing is to explore their stories, listen to conversations and being immersed in the sport’s culture.
Running gear is simple, but the more you pay attention to it, the more fine tuning you want so it works best for you. Especially when it comes to running a marathon. You carefully choose your shoes for race day. You’ve tested them on long runs so the energy return feels right, so the engineered upper gives you the fit you want.
What kind of socks would you choose? We think its socks that work great with the shoe technology, give you the best feel in these shoes you’ve invested so heavily in. In the weeks of a race build-up, your usual pair of trusted socks end up at the side of the underwear drawer, reserved only for those longer weekend runs. Are these really the ideal socks you want to wear just for special occasions? Wouldn’t you want that premium performance feel every run? We all like to read-up on our shoes, but who really researches socks?
I wanted to take away that agony. Starting with the essentials, an iconic black and a white running sock that goes with any shoe. Then made for the fast, thin uppers of today that you’ll run in your Spring or Fall marathons. Designed to be classically minimalistic that goes with any shoe brand of your choice because we don’t need another big logo screaming for attention. Also, let’s be real, no one sets out to mix up brands and clashing logos. We don’t put Audi stickers on BMWs, so why on our feet?
I’m based in Munich, in close proximity to the Alps and Northern Italy where you can find some of the best garment makers in the world. I wanted to create socks purely for runners, athletes I have worked with and now call my friends, who helped me to test and develop during prototyping. The guideline was to produce a simple sock, not to overdo it, but make the best product I could with all the technology a runner really needs in a performance distance sock. Simple yes, but you’ll discover some of the finer details at a closer look.
Now I’m stoked every time I see a runner who chose NEAR EARTH to be the socks of choice for their racing. They take pride of place in the drawer waiting to be worn on the hard workouts, or just the default favourites that you don’t have to think about because they work so well – for you.