Hermanos Koumori Brings Style & Performance to Mexico City’s Running Scene

Design Before Running

Curiosity has consistently driven the company's founders, Alex León and Alex Sandler. The two were introduced by a mutual friend at an entrepreneurial event in their early twenties. León studied industrial design, approaching products as systems more than objects, while Sandler's background is in economics. But the Mexico City natives quickly bonded over their shared desire to experiment with products, combining a love of architecture with clothing design.

“We each had different projects back then,” León says. “I always wanted to start a clothing brand and focused on graphics; Sandler was studying economics and had a great sense of style. One night, I called him and said, ‘Do you want to start a clothing brand?’ He said yes. We were young, naïve, and just went for it. Since then, it’s been trial and error.”

In 2018, they launched Hermanos Koumori as a small streetwear project, producing graphic T-shirts and 5-panel caps riffing on fictional, literature-inspired concepts, including their imagined airline, Aerolíneas Populares. A year later, both founders discovered running and noticed that the performance apparel on the market didn’t reflect how they dressed or thought about design.

“When we started running, we didn’t connect with the running clothes out there, so we began experimenting with our own,” León says.

Founders Alex León and Alex Sandler | Courtesy Hermanos Koumori

A T-Shirt & a Running Brand

In 2020, the pair released a single graphic T-shirt reading Post Running High. The design went viral on Instagram.

"The Post Running High tee became a turning point because it helped us realize people weren't only connecting with the product, they were connecting with the culture around it," Sandler says. "After that, we focused on consistently showing up for our community."

Rather than relying on traditional marketing, Hermanos Koumori organized group runs, hosted pop-ups, and collaborated with Tony Delfino, Café Tormenta, and artists like David Rocha and Sango Moyao. They worked with MUTEK MX, a platform and event series dedicated to electronic music, digital art, and multimedia creativity in Latin America. For León and Sanders, community-building around the brand deserved the same intentionality as product design.

After establishing themselves in Mexico City, Hermanos Koumori hosted a weekend pop-up in Los Angeles in November 2019. It was there, over drinks after the event, that they realized the running side of the business had eclipsed everything else.

"We could see the running side was really gaining momentum, and that's when we decided to pivot completely and focus 100 percent on running," Sandler says.

In this new form, Hermanos Koumori has found a global following with activations at major races in Tokyo and Spain, and through collaborations with Adidas, which has become one of the brand's closest collaborators over the last two years. Their latest partnership drew from the colors of Mexico City's volcanic landscape, translating earthy greens and sandy neutrals into semi-sheer coach jackets, hoodies, and two-in-one shorts. Across the collection, you can find Hermanos Koumori's guiding mantra: Run with the Mind. HK also collaborates with New Era to release seasonal drops.

“These collaborations weren't one big leap; they were the result of years of building credibility through product, community, and consistency,” León says.

Most recently, the brand released a collection of official running jerseys celebrating Mexico City as one of the FIFA World Cup 2026 host cities, a project that celebrated the brand's hometown roots and provided a canvas to exude pride for the city they call home.

Mexican by Nature, Not by Branding

Hermanos Koumori's rise has coincided with a broader running boom in Mexico. According to Statista Consumer Insights’ 2025 report, Mexico is among the world's leading running markets, with 24% of respondents saying they run or jog at least occasionally. Sandler places the label within the context of the wider global running boom. “Running used to feel old school here, but the boom is worldwide: France, Germany, the U.S., Singapore, Japan. Social media accelerates that culture. You can see communities growing everywhere,” he says, noting Mexico’s strong participation in the sport.

Mexican culture informs the brand indirectly; León and Sandler avoid literal or clichéd references—there are no cacti, alebrijes, or south-of-the-border western fonts here—preferring to translate the city’s architecture, geometry, textures, and colors into a contemporary design language. The brand's aesthetic also reflects the founders' admiration for Japanese design, its technical minimalism, respect for nature, and quiet functionality.

“We don’t approach Mexican culture with direct, literal references,” León says. “It’s part of our everyday life, so it naturally appears in our work, but translated into a contemporary design language.”

“We can’t escape being Mexican; we’re proud of it,” Sandler adds, “but we want to reinterpret our DNA in a way that connects internationally.”

Courtesy Hermanos Koumori

To support the apparel line, Hermanos Koumori operates five flagship locations across Mexico, four in the Mexico City area and one in Guadalajara, each designed in close collaboration with the Chinese architectural studio OAOA. The stores aren’t traditional running gear shops; they're design-forward spaces that balance sport and art, frequently incorporating raw, unexpected elements like rocks and textured surfaces to create contrast and inject a sense of narrative into the space.

“What we try to create isn’t a classic running store,” León explains. “It’s design-driven. We’ve built an aesthetic that links product, marketing, and architecture so the space seems like part of the brand.” They also serve as hubs for group runs and community meetups.

Many of Hermanos Koumori's customers come from the same worlds that León and Sandler reference through the clothing they make: architecture, fashion, design, photography, music. What connects them is less their profession than a shared appreciation for thoughtful products and strong design, and the sort of community built around those interests. For León, Sandler, and Hermanos Koumori's adherents—and so many others who have come to the sport in recent years—running is no longer a niche pursuit separate from creative life; it's a crucial part of it.

"Right now, a runner is only a runner for one or two hours of the day," León says. "Hermanos Koumori wants to be present in the runner's daily life, from work to hanging out with friends.” In an increasingly crowded performance market, Hermanos Koumori has found its inside lane not by chasing speed or hype, but by designing for the hours before, during, and after the run, and by doing so without straying too far from the creative Mexico City community that inspired them.