There are plenty of ways to start a day at TFWA Cannes. We decided that 7am, trainers on, 5km along La Croisette and coffee afterwards sounded like a pretty good one.
This year, alt*ego joined forces with Women in Travel Retail (WiTR) to create the alt*ego x WiTR Cannes Run Club - an informal morning run bringing together people from across the travel retail community before another very full day at TFWA began.
No race. No stopwatch. No pressure to be fast. Just an early morning on the Croisette, good company and coffee waiting at the finish.
Why a run club?
Performance has always been part of the alt*ego world, but so has bringing people together.
TFWA is brilliant for making connections, and much of the week inevitably happens across meeting tables, exhibition stands, lunches and glasses of champagne.
We wanted to create a slightly different meeting place.
Running alongside someone creates a completely different conversation. There are no name badges to study, no sales pitch required and very little formality at 7am in a pair of trainers.
So we kept the format deliberately simple: meet outside the Carlton Cannes, run approximately 5km along La Croisette at an easy, social pace, watch the sun rise and finish together for coffee at Good Mate Coffee.
7am on La Croisette
By 6.45am each morning, a slightly sleepy collection of runners was gathering outside the Carlton Cannes.
The first morning, around 20 of us turned up. The second was a smaller group of around 10. And by our final morning, word had spread and almost 30 people were waiting outside the hotel ready to run.
We deliberately kept the route the same each day. No complicated directions, no worrying about pace. Just 5km along La Croisette and around the cap before heading back for coffee.
At that time of the morning, Cannes feels like a completely different place.
We set off in the dark, sharing the streets mostly with dustmen and hotel staff beginning their shifts. We ran past the beach, the yachts sitting quietly in the harbour and the casino, before reaching the cap just as the sun began to appear.
And what a sunrise.
Red, pink and orange stretched across the sky as we ran, giving us some of the most glorious photographs of the entire week.
The group itself was just as colourful.
We had runners from all over the world and from almost every corner of the travel retail industry — perfume, confectionery, tobacco, alcohol, operators, distributors and more.
Some were familiar faces. Others had never met before that morning.
But everyone seemed to arrive with the same intention: to start the day moving, talking and feeling good.
Our run leaders Nikol, Emily and Selena kept the pace deliberately gentle and conversational. Nobody was left behind. There was no stopwatch and certainly no race.
There were, however, plenty of smiles.
Run first. Coffee second.
Our finish line each morning was Good Mate Coffee, where water, coffee, banana bread and granola bites were waiting for us.
Some runners had early meetings and disappeared almost immediately to begin their TFWA day. Others lingered over coffee, swapping stories about meetings, dinners and the previous night's adventures.
Contact details were exchanged. New introductions were made. And conversations that had started somewhere along La Croisette carried on over coffee.
Everyone who joined us also took away one of our limited-edition alt*ego Cannes luggage stickers, created especially for the trip - a small souvenir of an early morning on La Croisette, and considerably easier to pack than a medal.
One of the loveliest things to hear throughout the three mornings was simply how much people appreciated having a group to run with.
Travelling for work can make keeping up the routines that make us feel good surprisingly difficult. Add long days, late nights and a packed exhibition schedule, and that becomes harder still.
But when somebody else has set the alarm too, getting out of bed becomes that little bit easier.
And perhaps that was the nicest part of the whole idea.
The run was never really about running.
It was about creating an opportunity for people to meet differently — away from stands, meetings and appointments. To run alongside someone you might otherwise never have spoken to, swap stories, make a new connection and start the day feeling like the best version of yourself.
Performance first. Expression always.
Of course, we could not organise a Cannes Run Club without bringing a little alt*ego along for the ride.
We deliberately did not turn the mornings into a product showcase or sales exercise. The point was community.
But our eyewear was there, being worn as the sun came up, and that naturally led to questions about the brand and what we are building.
Those conversations felt completely different when they happened side-by-side on a run or over coffee afterwards. There were some lovely offers of support and some interesting conversations that I am looking forward to continuing now that Cannes is over.
That feels far more valuable than a hard sell ever could.
And from performance eyewear on an early-morning run to something rather more glamorous later on La Croisette, Cannes felt like a pretty natural place for our different alter egos to come out to play.
Thank you, Cannes
A huge thank you to Women in Travel Retail for getting behind the idea; to Nikol and Emily, our brilliant run leaders; to Good Mate Coffee for having everything waiting for us each morning; and, most importantly, to every single person who set an alarm and joined us.
Looking back, it is the people I will remember most.
Three mornings. Three slightly different groups. People from different countries, businesses and corners of the industry, all choosing to begin their day in exactly the same way.
Running along La Croisette in the dark, talking to someone new, watching the sky turn pink and orange over Cannes - and finishing with coffee and a group of people who, judging by the smiles in the photographs, were very glad they had got out of bed.
That was exactly what I hoped the Cannes Run Club would be.
And the final question?
Same time next year?
