Has this evolution gone slightly unnoticed?
Since launching in July 2021, Minted New York has steadily transformed from a menswear label with a modest running offering into one of the more distinctive and visually progressive brands in the space.
Looking back through each release, it's striking just how much the brand's visual identity has evolved. The early running collections borrowed heavily from classic track-and-field aesthetics, while today's releases lean into technical fabrics, conceptual graphics and a distinctly futuristic design language.
The brand's first release in July 2021 introduced the Minted New York Run Club through a selection of tanks and training tops. At the time, performance apparel sat alongside heavyweight cotton basics, tailoring and knitwear, with running forming just one part of a much broader menswear vision. The idea was simple: Minted could be the only brand a modern man needed, whether he was buying shirts, jackets or training gear.
Throughout the rest of 2021 and into 2022, that balance remained. Hoodies became a signature product, while Harrington jackets, trousers and knitwear arrived alongside running apparel, establishing the all-encompassing identity that defined the brand's early years.
By Autumn/Winter 2022, the performance side of the business had become much more considered. The collections still carried a clean, collegiate aesthetic inspired by traditional track-and-field uniforms, but technical fabrics and running-specific garments were beginning to take centre stage. Importantly, the menswear never disappeared. Jackets, jewellery, wallets and leather goods continued to arrive between performance drops, giving Minted a much broader identity as a brand.
2023 felt like a year of momentum rather than reinvention. Minted continued expanding its running collections, released a New York Marathon capsule and hosted its first pop-up, but perhaps the biggest development came in May, when the brand revealed its first collaboration with Saucony on the ProGrid Triumph 4. Although it was a lifestyle shoe, it marked the beginning of a partnership that would quickly become one of the most exciting collaborative projects in recent years.
The next chapter arrived in 2024. The launch of the Minted Athletics Department made it clear that performance was becoming a much greater focus, but the defining moment came later that year with the Minted New York x Saucony Endorphin Speed 4. Unlike the previous collaboration, this was a genuine performance running shoe. The bold monochromatic blue colourway immediately stood out and, paired with a race collection, became one of the most sought-after footwear releases in the running community.
It's worth pausing on that release because, in many ways, it encapsulates what makes Minted such an interesting brand. Releasing an almost entirely blue performance shoe was a surprisingly confident decision, especially when blue had never really been a defining part of the brand's visual identity. It would have been easy to produce something safer - neutral tones or the fluorescent colours typically associated with performance footwear - but instead they committed to an idea that felt completely their own. The result was a shoe that people didn't know they wanted until they saw it, and one that has since become one of the defining releases of this modern running era.
Throughout 2025, that shift became increasingly obvious. The collegiate, track-inspired aesthetic was largely gone, replaced by something far more technical and futuristic.
Lightweight shells, race vests and increasingly experimental graphics arrived alongside the introduction of sports nutrition into the wider Minted ecosystem. Heat-map-inspired prints, bold colour palettes and scientific references replaced the cleaner language of the earlier collections. Rather than simply evolving individual products, Minted was gradually reshaping the entire world it had built around the brand.
That direction has only become more defined throughout 2026. Doctor DeMinted, laboratory-inspired graphics and the recent Synapse collection push the brand further into a futuristic vision. Drawing inspiration from neuroscience, adaptation and human performance is a long way from the cotton Run Club hoodies that introduced the brand just five years earlier.
The latest Saucony collaboration - the chrome Endorphin Pro 5 - perfectly captures that progression. In the space of three collaborations, Minted has gone from releasing a cream-and-green lifestyle sneaker to producing two of the most sought-after and visually innovative performance running shoes in recent memory.
I also think it's worth recognising just how good this shoe is from a purely visual perspective. The chrome Endorphin Pro 5 is a genuinely striking piece of design. Committing to a full chrome performance shoe is an incredibly bold move - one that many of the industry's biggest brands would probably have been too cautious to make. Yet that's exactly the kind of confidence consumers are crying out for.
For a brand that started on the back of social media, producing a shoe that feels this premium, this visually progressive and this well executed is seriously impressive. More than anything, it raises the standard for what's expected from performance footwear and sends a clear message to the rest of the industry: be braver.
What's most interesting isn't simply that Minted New York has changed - it's how gradually that change has happened. Looking back across five years of releases, you can trace a clear progression from classic, track-inspired sportswear to a brand operating at the forefront of running design.
It's an evolution that has largely happened in plain sight, but one that deserves far more attention than it has received.