COLUMBIA, S.C. — In a long-awaited reveal, Aces star A’ja Wilson and Nike released images of her A’One shoe Tuesday.
The moment comes two years after Nike informed the three-time WNBA MVP that she would be receiving her own signature shoe and apparel line.
The low-top basketball shoe is being launched in a gradient pink scheme, which is just the first iteration of multiple colorways.
It won’t be released for purchase until May, which is when Wilson will begin her eighth season in the league. It’s a welcomed shift after she entered last season fielding countless questions regarding her apparent lack of a shoe.
“It’s taught me patience, but it’s also taught me to use my voice,” Wilson said of the creation process.
For Ben Nethongkome, the lead footwear designer for her collection, it’s not hard to think of a time when Wilson advocated for what she wanted in the shoe.
He said the design team would collect Wilson’s notes after every meeting and send them home in a booklet with her. Initially, Nike started with a “very fast-looking shoe,” Nethongkome said.
But when the Nike team went to the lab, it realized that Wilson had asked for cushion and support in addition to speed.
“We raised the height of the foam a little bit to get after a more cushion platform,” Nethongkome said. “The next time we met with her, she was like, ‘Wait a minute. According to my notes here, it looks way different than it was before.’”
When Nethongkome attempted to explain the motivation for the change, Wilson didn’t take no for an answer.
“She was like, ‘No, no, no. We need something that looks fast and matches my energy on court, matches my game,” Nethongkome said. “So the team went back to the drawing board, and she was right.”
Hometown celebration
Wilson, 28, quietly celebrated the looming shoe reveal during a weekend peppered with Nike-sponsored events for her friends and family in her hometown of Columbia, South Carolina.
It was a festive few days, as Wilson and company also relished in the Gamecocks retiring her collegiate No. 22 jersey Sunday.
The university already had a statue in Wilson’s honor — on a campus that Wilson said her late grandmother, Hattie Rakes, once wasn’t allowed to walk through as a Black woman in the segregated South.
Wilson is the first Black woman to spearhead her own signature basketball shoe for Nike since Sheryl Swoopes 23 years ago. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley had her own Nike shoes before that, in 1999 and 2000. Wilson is also the first Black WNBA player to be announced as a signature headliner since Candace Parker with Adidas in 2010.
Although those women are close to Wilson, she didn’t ask for their opinions or support during the shoe’s ideation or execution.
“For once, I didn’t take that route,” Wilson said. “It’s always going to be a shout out to them, but that wasn’t my first intentional thought.”
‘Be your true self’
Her main priority was making sure the shoe felt authentic to herself. Her logo is featured in the shoe, along with her abbreviated and full signature.
“As a matter of fact, the best is yet to come,” a line from her New York Times bestselling book, Dear Black Girls, is on the sole of the shoe. A quote she provided after an Aces game about weakness is pressed into the heel.
The leggings and shorts in her collection are asymmetric to replicate the one-legging look she sports in games.
“When people wear it and they say, ‘Hey, I want to be like A’ja, I want them to always remember, ‘No, be your true self.’ That’s why you have the Easter eggs and different things,” Wilson said. “(Being) true to yourself, that’s being A’ja.”
Of course, odes to her role models still made their way into the product.
Tattoos she has of the two Celtic symbols for “mom” and “dad” are printed inside of the tongue of the sneaker.
Because Wilson’s grandmother gave her a pearl necklace to boost her confidence in her appearance when she was in an “awkward phase,” there are pearl motifs in the finish of the sneaker.
Won’t fret over sales
Wilson said her desire to be authentic has cooled her concerns about the shoe sales. Nike currently has just one other WNBA player with a signature shoe in Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty. Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark’s is on the way.
“The pressure was there obviously, because we have competitors outside of Nike, but then you also have competitors within your Nike home, and you have to see how you want to separate,” Wilson said. “I feel like the pressure was relieved once I understood that, ‘No, this is a piece of me.’”
Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.