A capsule inspired by Paris in motion, Victor Hugo’s enduring masterpiece, and the familiar landmarks that take on a different meaning when seen on foot.
Paris is never entirely still.
Before the cafés fill, before the first métro arrives, silhouettes are already moving through the city. Along the Seine. Across empty bridges. Past shuttered shopfronts and illuminated windows. For a few quiet hours, the streets belong to runners, bakers, night workers, cyclists and everyone already on their way somewhere else.
This is the Paris behind the postcard: a city built from stone, movement and contradiction. A place where centuries-old monuments stand above traffic, construction sites, late-night conversations and the steady rhythm of footsteps on pavement.
The Notre-Dame de Paris Capsule by LIEVRE Running is rooted in that energy. It is a tribute to Paris, but not in its most polished or predictable form. It looks at the city through movement, distortion and the constant friction between heritage and everyday life.
A city written in motion
At the centre of the capsule is Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris. Published in 1831, the novel made the cathedral more than a monument. In Hugo’s hands, it became a character: immense, fragile, sheltering, oppressive, beautiful and marked by time.
His Paris was already a restless city. A city of crowds, hidden streets, social divides and monumental architecture. The story was not only about a cathedral. It was about the life unfolding around it.
That tension still feels familiar today. Paris remains a city of monuments and movement. You can run past Notre-Dame at sunrise, cross the Île de la Cité before the crowds arrive, follow the river towards Bastille or the Eiffel Tower, and feel the city change block by block.
Its history is always present, but it is never fixed. It is carried forward by the people moving through it.
Familiar symbols, seen differently
The two long-sleeve tops take their colour palette from the French tricolour: one deep blue, one vivid red. Across them, the Eiffel Tower appears warped, shifted from its familiar silhouette.
The graphic quietly echoes Quasimodo and the altered physicality at the heart of Hugo’s story. A symbol of symmetry, spectacle and national identity is deliberately bent out of shape — still recognisably Parisian, but seen from another angle.
It is not the Paris of souvenirs. It is a more personal, less stable vision of the city: one shaped by movement, perspective and the feeling of crossing familiar streets at a different pace.
Pieces made to move through the day
The capsule also includes two Notre-Dame de Paris T-shirts, available in white and red. Made from an ultra-soft Lyocell and wool blend, they are designed to be worn comfortably for hours.
They sit naturally between a run, a day in the city and everything in between. Soft against the skin and easy to live in, they reflect a simple idea: running does not always need to be separated from the rest of the day.
Completing the capsule is a white cap, continuing the silhouette established in previous LIEVRE RUNNING collections. Lightweight and made for warmer temperatures, it is designed for long summer days outside — whether spent running through the city, travelling, or simply staying in motion.
An ode to a living city
The Notre-Dame de Paris Capsule is not a nostalgia project.
It is an ode to a living city: its runners, its streets, its stories and its monuments. A city that can feel poetic, crowded, harsh, romantic and beautiful within the same hour.
Above all, it is a collection about movement through place — and about seeing the symbols we think we know from a different perspective.