The motion began a few years earlier than the inception of the W. After profitable the ‘93 NCAA Championship with the Texas Tech Girl Raiders—dropping a document 47 factors—a 22-year-old Sheryl Swoopes signed with The Swoosh. The long run Corridor of Famer and four-time WNBA Champion was a surefire lock for the ‘94 USA Ladies’s Nationwide Staff. Within the midst of their Bronze medal run within the FIBA World Championships, Nike and lead designer Marni Gerber have been within the course of of constructing historical past.
After falling wanting expectations in ‘94, a 52-game exhibition schedule was ready. Whereas the historic group of gamers together with Lisa Leslie, Daybreak Staley, Nikki McCray and Katrina McClain ready for the ‘96 Olympics, Nike launched the first-ever girls’s signature basketball shoe, the Nike Air Swoopes I. The mannequin was crammed with Swoopes’ insights, highlighted by her signature “S” emblem on the tongue and rounded heel tabs so she might simply get out and in of the sneakers together with her lengthy nails.
The purple, white and blue coloured mannequin can be the primary of Swoopes’ seven signature silhouettes, the longest signature run for any girls’s basketball participant. Within the inaugural season of the WNBA, Swoopes would rock the Air Swoopes Zoom III. She’d win the primary of her and the Houston Comets’ four-straight championships within the Air Zoom Swoopes. She recorded the primary triple-double in League historical past and received a ‘96 Olympic Gold medal within the Air Swopes II and received the 2000 WNBA MVP within the Air Swoopes IV.
From ‘95 to ‘01, Sheryl Swoopes ushered in a brand new age of marketability and potential for ladies and younger women in sports activities throughout the nation. And within the place of the path she blazed, others expanded the realm of alternative.
After witnessing the success of Swoopes first three silhouettes, Nike would welcome a second WNBA athlete to the signature household; Lisa Leslie. With a 101-point highschool recreation persevering with to unfold the phrase of her dominance, the USC legend held potential from the hardwood to the runway—signing a modeling contract with the acclaimed Wilhelmina company earlier than becoming a member of the LA Sparks in ‘97.
Recent off profitable Gold on the ‘96 Olympic Video games and securing All First-Staff honors in her rookie season, Leslie debuted the Nike Complete Air 9 throughout her sophomore marketing campaign in ‘98. Impressed by the lavish aesthetic of Chanel purses that she grew up idolizing, Leslie’s first and solely signature silhouette boasted a quilted leather-based higher and metallic swooshes that took after her love for silver jewellery. After incorporating Leslie’s design language, Nike outfitted the mid-top with a full-length Complete Air cushioning system.
From the Nike Air Max Elite to the Blue Chip II and the Huarache 2K5, the three-time League MVP rocked their marquee fashions designed in unique Sparks colours and inscribed together with her “LL9” emblem.
Whereas it sometimes takes anyplace from 18-24 months for a advertising and marketing plan and signature shoe to be created and formally launched, Swoopes and Leslie dropped buckets in a number of the first basketball sneakers designed solely for ladies. By ‘98, The Swoosh would bolster its roster even additional, releasing Daybreak Staley’s signature sneaker, the Nike Zoom S5. Flaunting the primary preliminary of her final identify and her jersey quantity alongside the supportive strap, the glove-like mannequin would obtain a follow-up within the Zoom S5 II in ‘99. In that very same yr, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke entered the chat after headlining the Nike Air Max Shake ‘Em Up in her rookie season.
Named after her jersey quantity, the Nike Air C14 witnessed the Houston Comet’s third-straight WNBA Championship and cemented Nike’s stake within the girls’s recreation. 5 signature sneakers in 5 years.
To champion its female-led roster, Nike did what they did greatest, prepare dinner up a fireplace industrial. Not only one, however three. Headlined by a younger Kyla Pratt, the circa ‘98 “Little Rascals” showcased three younger women peppering Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke and Tina Thompson with questions and opinions about their recreation.
Whereas Nike rolled out the purple carpet, Jordan Model—not even a yr into the institution as its personal impartial model beneath Nike—launched its basketball shoe designed and geared solely towards girls. Releasing it in the identical yr because the Air Jordan XIII, the Jordan OG shared an identical design language with dimple-stitched sidewalls and a carbon fiber shank within the midsole whereas the heel was embellished with an embroidered jet-black W.
SLAM 29 cowl star Chamique Holdsclaw would revolutionize the flip of the century. As Cooper, Staley, Leslie and Swoopes headlined Air Max and Zoom Air-based cushioning programs, Chamique led the best way for the model’s newest on-court expertise, Nike Shox.
The long-lasting Nike Shox BB4 turned a staple for Holdsclaw in ‘01. Her model, nonetheless, pulled from a space-themed inspiration, sporting a porous sample laid throughout the leather-based sidewalls that mimicked moon craters. After securing the ‘02 Scoring Title, Holdsclaw held down the debut of her personal signature, the Nike Shox Mique II.
Three years later, a future contender for the GOAT title would come up, marking Nike’s sixth girls’s signature athlete: Diana Taurasi. The reigning Rookie of the Yr entered the ‘05 season with the Nike Air Taurasi in tow, doing harm in UConn and Mercury-based colorways. Her Maserati-inspired signature emblem sat proudly alongside the outer heel above a sea of quilted stitching.
The next season noticed DT and The Swoosh run it again, switching from an Air-based cushioning resolution to the wildly standard Shox expertise. Except for the orange and purple palettes and “Taurasi” printed insoles, the Nike Shox DT explored a way more reserved strategy to the signature resolution. As an alternative, the mid-top mannequin was marketed towards highschool groups that always wore matching sneakers in unison. All through ‘06, the Shox DT launched a myriad of staff financial institution colorways that would simply match with women’ basketball groups throughout the nation. But Taurasi’s second sneaker can be the ultimate girls’s-specific signature sequence launched by the model in practically 20 years.
Within the place of signature choices got here a extra centralized concentrate on the model’s tried-and-true options. The ‘02 season noticed the Nike Shox Stunner lengthen a far-reaching dominance. 4-time All-Star Tina Penicheiro frequented an unique purple, white and silver colorway with an embroidered Portugal flag whereas Tina Thompson’s contrasting purple pair sported “Cali Lady” in royal blue cursive alongside the ankle strap.
Each Sue Hen and Seattle Storm teammate Lauren Jackson have been recognized for stockpiling warmth within the Pacific Northwest, dicing up the W in PEs of the Zoom Soldier V, and the heralded Huarache 2K4. Lindsey Harding, Deanna Nolan, Tamika Catchings, Hen and Jackson all made the Nike Air Flight Elite a staple in ‘07.
These reserved colorways weren’t simply held for the gamers. In 2011, Nike confirmed the complete LA Sparks group some like to rejoice their fifteenth season, releasing a particularly restricted 24 pairs of the Nike Zoom Hyperfuse within the staff’s eccentric shade scheme.
That very same yr, Jordan signed one of many best gamers ever: Maya Moore.
Coming into her rookie season with the Minnesota Lynx, Moore headlined the model’s suave, modern and equally explosive ethos. Throughout her reign within the W, Moore touted Jordan’s full line of on-court options, from the Jordan Fly Wade and the Jordan Tremendous Fly to the Jordan Recreation shoe; the fashionable continuation of Michael Jordan’s signature line that’s at present on its thirty ninth iteration. Moore rocked unique colorways and textures. The Air Jordan 28 via Air Jordan 32 turned a clean canvas for gradients and hues impressed by the Lynx shade scheme, marbled, lenticular and galactic patterns and naturally her signature emblem.
Off the courtroom, the previous WNBA MVP explored her style via the lens of the Air Jordan retro silhouettes. Wealthy materials and colourful palettes stuffed various fashions impressed by Moore together with the Air Jordan 1, Air Jordan X and Air Jordan XI.
Regardless of the care, dedication and creativity that was poured into Nike and Jordan’s mainstay fashions, the absence of a number one feminine presence within the signature basketball house definitely turned a degree of rivalry over time.
Trying to broaden your WNBA sneaker information? Learn extra on how the present legends of the W are creating their very own renaissance motion.