Mark Bechara had been running for more than 15 years before he thought of building a business around it. He studied literature, spent years teaching and writing, and most of his career in apparel – all disparate elements that eventually converged in Literary Sport, the sportswear label he founded with Deirdre Matthews in 2022.

The connection between his interests never felt forced. His running cadence had always suggested a kind of poetic narrative to him. “It was just a run, but it often felt like more than just a run,” Bechara says. That instinct shaped the brand long before it had a name to match it. “I remember Jackie [McKeown] saying, ‘Literary Sport’. It immediately felt right and I think captured or even expanded more of what the brand was trying to convey.”

Literary Sport is a small operation with fewer than 10 members of staff. It’s hands-on by design. Jackie McKeown, the design and creative director, and her partner Fran Miller oversee the brand’s direction from product through to campaign, staying involved at every stage. Bechara describes his own role as moving between the brand’s story and its spreadsheets, while operations are led by Matthews.

Longevity and versatility are two words that come up often when McKeown talks about what the clothes are for. The brand is imagined around thoughtful wardrobe building rather than relentless newness. Materials are high quality and used with restraint. Performance is balanced against silhouette, proportion and fabrication, resulting in pieces that work without announcing themselves as technical.

McKeown’s design process tends to start with a single idea. The challenge then is “figuring out how to translate that into a piece that’s made for movement,” she says. From there, the work is largely about fabric: how a material translates in performance, and how that determines construction and fit. McKeown runs in the prototypes herself and lives with them day to day.“That’s often where you discover what feels necessary, what doesn’t and what still needs refining,” she says.

The AW26 collection began, characteristically, with a personal reference. McKeown kept returning to Scotland – her own heritage, her years as a competitive Highland dancer – and let that inspire the season’s direction, styling and campaign location. Technical plaids and wool fleeces bring those references into the fabric itself. Lapis blue anchors the palette throughout, drawn from Yves Klein’s Anthropometry series; the St Andrew’s flag and a photograph of the Oasis singer Liam Gallagher in an indigo button-up shirt. That, in turn, became the starting point for the Lawrence shell jacket, which is a personal highlight of hers.

Among other pieces available at MR PORTER, McKeown singles out the Anton half-zip for its versatility, particularly for travel. Elsewhere, the Weldon waffle-knit long-sleeve top is a staple for colder runs, while a tartan version of the Myles shorts gets a bit more structure from the Dot Air fabric, which feels right for autumn. When people wear Literary Sport, McKeown wants them to feel comfort, confidence and ease, like “they’ve invested in something they’ll genuinely want to live in.”

As running shifts from sport to cultural movement, McKeown sees the change more as a confirmation than an influence on the brand’s approach. From the start, Literary Sport was built around pieces that move between running and everyday life without friction. As more people come to running for reasons beyond performance, the appetite for clothing that does the same has only grown.

The running category at large is expected to become more specialised with racing-driven brands pushing further into pure performance, while others continue to widen what technical apparel can look like. And that feels like what Literary Sport was born to do.