You have probably seen the sunglasses. The slim, sci-fi-esque, Japanese-made frames are quietly on the faces of a large sector of runners. But District Vision, the Los Angeles-based brand now stocked at Complex, is stranger and deeper than its most recognizable product lets on. It started as something other than an eyewear label, its founders came out of high fashion, and it has somehow become one of the most name-checked collaborators in running and fashion culture without taking a dollar of outside money. Here are 10 things you didn't know about District Vision.
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District Vision didn't start as an eyewear brand, but as meditation classes.
Before there was a single pair of sunglasses, District Vision was a series of workshops teaching meditation to runners. The founders, Tom Daly and Max Vallot, describe the company on their own site as something that grew out of that idea: that runners were as interested in training the mind as the body. The sports eyewear system that made the brand famous did not launch until December 2015.
The name is a nod to Mexico City.
District Vision does not refer to a neighborhood in New York or London. Co-founder Vallot has said the name came from time spent in Mexico City, where the founders were struck by the raw, hands-on way artisans worked and sold their goods. The name is also a derivative of the Spanish word "distrito." The idea was to take a holistic, modern approach to conscious living and apply it across different "districts" of life.
It has never taken outside investment.
In an era of venture-funded activewear brands, District Vision has stayed fully independent. It launched its first product, the Keiichi sunglasses, in 2015 at two of the most influential retailers in the world: Colette and Dover Street Market. Daly and Vallot have repeatedly framed their independence as the thing that lets them stay true to their mission, and they have grown the business without selling a stake.
The founders came out of high fashion, not sportswear.
Daly and Vallot met as students at a business school in London. They moved to New York in 2009 and built careers in fashion, Vallot at Saint Laurent and Daly at Acne Studios, before leaving to start their own creative agency, District Projects in 2015. That agency worked with heavyweight clients including Balenciaga, Nike, and Byredo. District Vision grew directly out of that studio.
The sunglasses are handmade in Japan and named after real people.
District Vision's frames are produced in Japan, in a region known for precision metalwork and titanium construction, using a titanium temple wire paired with lightweight nylon. The founders have said the connection began through one of Japan's oldest eyewear manufacturers, who happens to be a long-distance runner himself. Daly ran a marathon in Hawaii with him. Model names like Keiichi, Nagata, Kaishiro, and Nakoare are not random. Daly and Vallot have said their frames are named after members of their team in Japan.
Co-founder, Max Vallot, taught meditation inside Rikers Island.
The mindfulness side of District Vision is not just branding. According to the running publication Tempo, Vallot took his meditation practice into Rikers Island, the New York City jail complex, to lead workshops for inmates.
District Vision’s new LA flagship is a store by day and a meditation studio by night.
In 2026, District Vision opened its first permanent flagship in Downtown Los Angeles' Arts District. The brand calls the roughly 2,700-square-foot space a "hybrid retail and research environment": a shop with technical eyewear service, a coffee and hydration bar, and even non-alcoholic Japanese beer. After hours, it converts into a space for running, breathwork, and meditation sessions. Built with SR Studio out of aluminum, hinoki wood, vintage Japanese ceramics, and native California plants, it is less a store than a temple to the brand's whole worldview.
Its first "campaign" was just its founders' friends.
District Vision came up through New York's crew running scene. Its early imagery was essentially documentation of the founders' own social circle. Knox Robinson, captain and co-founder of the influential Black Roses NYC crew, has been a District Vision athlete since launch and even has a product named after him, called the Knox Trail Running Case. As Daly has told it, the brand was already inside that world, so the early shoots were friends, not a manufactured marketing push, even if people assumed otherwise.
Ultrarunner crossed America on foot wearing District Vision.
District Vision built its credibility on the road, not the moodboard. In 2018, Ultrarunner Ricky Gates wore the brand's eyewear during his roughly 3,600-mile, unsupported run across the United States, the kind of real-world test most fashion-adjacent sunglasses never come close to facing.
District Vision collaborated with New Balance.
District Vision's collaborations, especially its run of New Balance projects on silhouettes like the 1080v15 and the SC Elite v5, have pushed it from a runner's secret into the mainstream sneaker conversation. It has also been linked with Salomon, the Korean cult label Post Archive Faction, Suicoke, 2XU (on a collection inspired by the brutal Badwater 135 ultramarathon), and others.
