Gymshark is giving brand loyalists the footwear options they’ve been asking for over the years.

The U.K. gym and fitness brand, a leader in the active apparel market, is collaborating with British performance footwear brand R.A.D for a limited-edition collection of its R.A.D One V2 and R-1 shoe styles. The training shoes have a cult following among members of the U.S. and U.K. fitness communities. The footwear collaboration will be available for sale starting Wednesday, with the shoes priced at $150 per pair.

Collaborations are a good way for brands to dip their toes into the shoe market and explore customer receptivity to a new category. And the good link-ups are the ones where both brands can showcase their respective specialties to a new audience that could potentially bring in new customers for each brand.

Known for its extensive collection of tees, leggings, sports bras and other gym apparel selections, Gymshark’s expansion into training footwear occurs ahead of the brand’s unveiling of its first North American flagship store in New York this year in the SoHo neighborhood at 11 Bond St.

Ben Francis, Gymshark’s founder and CEO, declined to disclose the flagship’s opening date.

“It’s a huge space, covering 13,000 square feet and sitting over four floors,” he said. The location is right around the corner from the site of a three-month pop-up the brand had at 105 Wooster St. that opened in November 2024.

There’s a good chance the flagship will also feature a continuation of the R.A.D collaboration. “We always have a test-and-learn approach at Gymshark,” Francis said, adding that if something works, then the brand will build on it. “While I can’t absolutely commit to what is next, it’s fair to say I’m feeling pretty confident about this collaboration with R.A.D,” he said.

So, why add shoes now to the Gymshark assortment mix?

Francis said the brand last year launched its “We Do Gym” campaign, which made it evident that the brand was lacking one gym component. “Our community has asked ‘When are you going to launch a shoe?’ for years. And it’s fair to say it’s something we always wanted to explore, because when our community talks, we don’t only like to listen, we also like to do it. With the success of We Do Gym, it’s clear the time is now right,” he said.

Francis, who founded Gymshark in 2012, said he’s a huge fan of R.A.D, and described the brand as “trailblazers in the training space.”

R.A.D was founded by Ben Massey in 2022. Although a British brand, the company has a Portland, Ore., headquarters where a design team of industry veterans — including Tom Berend, whose experience includes stints at Nike Innovation Kitchen and Adidas — work on shoe models using their technical know-how.

The brand is known for its collaborations with athletes in the CrossFit space. The latest collaboration with Gymshark is the brand’s biggest and most high-profile partnership to date, and the first “with a brand that also offers performance products,” noted Massey.

The R.A.D founder said the two training shoes are similar from a performance standpoint, but they target different athletes. “The R.A.D One V2 stands out beyond general conditioning workouts for its stability during lifts and the midsole protection for rope climbs. We specifically designed it for athletes competing at the highest level in CrossFit,” Massey said. “The R.A.D R-1 performs similarly to the One for general conditioning but is lighter, more breathable, and cushioned for higher-rep workouts that include running, making it an ideal gym shoe for elite Hyrox athletes.” Hyrox is a fitness competition that combines running and functional exercise to challenge athletes’ endurance, strength and mental toughness.

R.A.D is the acronym for Rally Against Destruction of the mind, body and planet, the internal company motto that encourages minimizing one’s impact on the environment, according to Massey. That focus is a contributing factor to the brand’s decision to use sugarcane in its SwellFoam™ technology in the shoes’ midsoles, “which is very light and springy, making it ideal for plyometric movements such as box jumps and skipping,” he said. The R.A.D founder also explained: “Sugarcane absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it grows, reducing the need for fossil-based materials in production.”

“As a fellow British-founded brand, the opportunity to collaborate with a leading voice in the fitness space — one that shares a very similar vision — is something we feel very lucky to have,” Massey said.