Yahoo Lifestyle Ahnu: Hoka Cofounder’s New Passion Project
Jean-Luc Diard isn’t quite ready to anoint Ahnu as the next Hoka, but he has high hopes.
Diard is the mastermind and cofounder of the Hoka One One footwear brand. He created the cushioned sneaker with the oversize outsole in 2009 with Nicolas Mermoud at the height of the minimalistic shoe craze and it didn’t take long for the brand to transform the running market.
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Hoka, which is now part of Deckers Brands, has grown into a nearly $2 billion business and spawned imitators among all of the other running shoe companies.
Now, as global vice president of innovation for Deckers, Diard has turned his sights onto one of the company’s newest additions, Ahnu.
This new “super sneaker brand,” as Deckers is promoting it, launched quietly last year with the Sequence 1 sneaker. Although inspired by a running shoe with its high rebound, durable PEBA foam and carbon-fiber plate, it’s positioned more as a lifestyle shoe. It has been described by Deckers’ chief executive officer David Powers as a sneaker that combines the best learnings from the company’s Hoka and Ugg brands.
The sneaker had a soft launch last year at two New York retailers and online and sales met projections, according to Lee Cox, vice president of global marketing for Ahnu and Teva, another Deckers brand. “We had a very measured, thoughtful rollout around the U.S. and it’s achieving expectations — what you would expect from a new start-up. But we’re very pleased.”
Now the Ahnu brand is expanding with the Sequence 1.1 Suede version. The shoe, which is available in olive, oatmeal, black and berry beginning Tuesday, retails for $240 and will be sold on the brand’s website. It features a Prado suede upper, a premium foam midsole, a twin rocker and a forked carbon plate.
Diard said the shoe is intended to be a “comfort training shoe” that looks good and works for everyday life. “You want to have something that is stylish — not all over the world, because we are not Balenciaga — but something that is truly useful in as many situations as possible for modern life.”
Cox added: “It’s not a running shoe but it’s packed with performance DNA.”
Diard said it offers cushioning and a rocking motion for ease of walking, something people do 95 percent of the time, and the goal is to make a shoe that is comfortable enough to encourage people to be more active. “Compared to a running shoe, you take the same ingredients, but then fine-tune it.”
Diard laughed when asked if he thought Ahnu could ever get to be as big a business as Hoka. In fact, he admitted that when he created that brand to help runners master downhills, he could only dream that it would one day have sales of nearly $2 billion.
“I was very optimistic — that was definitely the target,” he said. “But it definitely went beyond my expectations at the beginning. Kudos to all the people that have been involved to make it happen.”
He acknowledged that Hoka has led to a lot of changes in the running shoe market with its oversize, cushioned silhouette for added comfort, its rocker technology for more fluid movement, and its use of super foams for a lightweight, bouncy feel. He believed these attributes could be applied to a comfort sneaker as well.
“We saw the opportunity for a new generation beyond the classic vulcanized sneaker with a look that is easy to wear at the office, at social gatherings, over the weekend or when you walk the dog,” Diard said. “The secret sauce is to take those characteristics and adapt them to daily life.”
Cox said that following Tuesday’s launch of the Sequence 1.1 Suede, the plan is to create demand through limited distribution before expanding the shoe’s reach. And rather than creating seasonal collections, Ahnu will drop capsules throughout the year “so we can gather learnings to help improve the product before we reach seasonality.”
He said to expect five to six capsules this year before converting to a more standard distribution strategy in spring 2026. “We were very measured with Hoka, too,” he said. “We were very thoughtful about where we put distribution, where we landed the product, who we put the product on. We’re taking the same approach, but in a very different space. We will be very patient.”
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