ASICS Built Its New Bloomstride Running Shoe for Women Only

ASICS put the Bloomstride on sale worldwide on Sept. 1, a $150 trainer sold in women’s sizes only, with no men’s version. The company says the shoe grew out of Move Her Mind, the women’s participation program it started in 2024, and out of more than two million foot scans.

The survey behind it, which ASICS commissioned, drew 24,772 responses from more than 40 countries, with Dee Dlugonski at the University of Kentucky’s Sports Medicine Research Institute and Brendon Stubbs at King’s College London leading the work. More than half the women said they had cut back on exercise or stopped altogether. Time was the barrier they named most, at 74 percent, then intimidating environments at 44 percent and not feeling sporty enough at 42 percent. Only 34 percent of men thought a lack of time got in women’s way.

How the Bloomstride Is Built

More than two million foot scans went into the fit, ASICS says, and the shape it arrived at is broader across the toes and tighter through the arch.

In 2019 Ales Jurca, Jure Žabkar and Sašo Džeroski measured 1.2 million three-dimensional foot scans collected in shoe stores across North America, Europe and Asia. Between 220mm and 240mm of foot length, women’s feet came out significantly wider than men’s of the same length. From 245mm to 280mm the men’s were wider. Instep height crossed over at roughly the same point. They argued in Scientific Reports that shoes should be developed separately by group, region and sex, and that a brand needs at least three widths in every length class to fit 90 percent of its customers.

A 6mm drop and a weight of 210g (7.4 oz) are the two numbers ASICS publishes for the Bloomstride. It gives no stack height, and the retailers carrying the shoe put it at 37mm in the heel and 31mm at the forefoot. The women’s Gel-Nimbus 28, which ASICS launched on Dec. 1 at $165 and which sits at the top of its cushioned range, runs around 42.5mm in the heel on an 8mm drop. That is five or six millimeters of foam the Bloomstride does without, while cushioned trainers have mostly been getting taller.

Susan Hoddinott-Au, a product manager for performance running footwear at ASICS, said in the announcement that with the lower stack and a new foam the company calls FF LUXE, the Bloomstride “sits close to the ground in the best way.”

Women’s-Specific Lasts Have Been Tried Before

Adidas says it built a running shoe on a women’s last in 1978, and a shoe made specifically for women the year after. Under Armour took until June 2022 to release its first, the Flow Synchronicity, and its chief product officer, Lisa Collier, told Retail Dive that women deserved better than the “shrink and pink” shoes the category had been handing them. Puma’s Run XX Nitro came out the same year in women’s sizes only and is now on a second version. Lululemon’s first shoe of any kind, the Blissfeel, arrived in March 2022, and the company said it had “intentionally started with women first.”

The retailers stocking the Bloomstride have put it in both their running and walking sections, while ASICS lists it under running. The announcement sells it as much for errands and hours on your feet as for training, alongside a refresh of NAGINO, the ASICS women’s apparel line.

Half-year results, reported on Aug. 14, showed Performance Running sales up 19.3 percent year on year in the six months to June 30, and SportStyle, the ASICS lifestyle sneaker line, up 83 percent. On a currency-neutral basis those become 8.2 percent and 65.6 percent.

ASICS has not said whether the women’s-specific fit will move into the rest of its running range, from the Gel-Nimbus down to its carbon racers.