Our story
One problem, fourteen prototypes
Kestrel began with a running club, a garage and a single complaint: shoes that go flat. This is how the KS-01 got made.
The people
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Ines Valderrama
Founder and head of product
Ran a running club in Boyle Heights for six years and kept hearing the same complaint: shoes that felt great for ten kilometres and flat by twenty. She started Kestrel to fix that one problem.
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Tomas Ekwueme
Materials lead
A polymer chemist who spent nine years on foam for other brands. He built the two density midsole and rejected thirteen blends before the fourteenth met his drop test numbers.
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Jun Park
Last maker
Shapes the Kestrel L2 last by hand and then checks it on more than two hundred feet. He decides where the knit gives and where it holds.
The making
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Spring 2024
The first foam test
Two layers of different density bonded in a hot press in a rented garage in Vernon. It was too soft. It was also the first time the idea worked.
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Autumn 2024
Prototype 14
The first pair with the one piece knit upper and the molded heel counter. Twelve club runners wore it for a season and sent back every pair, worn through, with notes.
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Spring 2025
The Kestrel L2 last
A new last with 11 mm of toe spring and room in the toe box, cut from forty foot scans.
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Winter 2025
Production partner
We chose a factory in Ho Chi Minh City that already makes knit running shoes at small volumes, and visited it four times before the first order.
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This year
One run of 1,200 pairs
Three colourways, 400 pairs each, every pair numbered inside the tongue. We made one run because we would rather sell out than guess.
What we will not do
No restocks. The run is 1,200 pairs. When a size is gone, it is gone, and the next colourway is a new shoe.
No hype words. We give you the foam density, the drop and the weight, and let you decide.
No dark patterns. The cart holds your pairs for 48 hours, shows the tax estimate before you commit, and cancelling is an email.
About this site
Kestrel is a fictional brand, made to show what a product launch site can do. The people, prices, addresses and phone numbers on it are invented. The reservation flow is real and stores its records, but no payment is taken and no shoe is shipped.