When Under Armour signed Stephen Curry in October of 2013, they knew they were getting a great player. But even they probably couldn’t have anticipated how great he’d become. In the fall of 2013, Curry hadn’t even been an All-Star yet. He was that season, and every season after so far. He’s been MVP twice—the last time unanimously, the first time it’s ever happened—an NBA champion, er, once. This past weekend, a guy who started off in PEs got his third signature shoe.
The Curry 3 launched last weekend in San Francisco in front of a select crowd of media and industry people, a crowd that—unlike the January 2015 launch of the Curry 1—didn’t include Bay Area beatwriters and columnists. I found this out when I hit one up to see whether he’d be there, and he hadn’t even heard about it. I mentioned that he’d been at the first one. “Yeah, but then he wasn’t Steph yet.” [Editor's note: An Under Armour representative assured me that Bay Area reporters were invited, and some did attend.]
It hasn’t even been two full years, but Curry has done nearly as much for Under Armour in that time as he has for the Warriors. For 2012, Under Armour’s revenue was $1.84 billion. Last year it was $3.96 billion. This year they’re expected to pull in nearly $5 billion. Much like they have for Curry himself, the attention paid to (and expectations for) his shoe have risen sky-high. As Curry became a superstar, his shoe mattered more than ever. And for a company that’s too new to have a retro business yet, it’s success—or failure—now will matter later, too. Curry knows this. Under Armour knows this. We know this.
So while Curry, in part, called the Curry 3 “a step in a totally different direction” from the 1 and 2 (and 2.5), there is a definite Curry identity emerging, a lineage being formed. “We build toolkits, and this is almost an augmentation of that toolkit,” UA design director Dave Dombrow says. He’s referring to materials and construction, but it’s something that could apply to the aesthetics as well. “For me, beyond the performance side that also starts to play the versatility side, too. You start to get that 24/7 wear. It’s a gateway into a new space for us, which Stephen and I have talked about a bit in the past.”
It’s something of an odd space for a company to find themselves in, at least in 2016. Nike started as a pure performance company, it’s true, but they did so in a far different landscape, where they actually preceded the entire “athleisure” trend. Now off-court wearability is, if anything, more important than on-court performance, a line that many signature shoes from every brand has had trouble walking. Curry knows this. Under Armour knows this. We know this.
The Curry 1 was actually a decent off-court shoe, as is the Curry 3. It’s got a straight cut across the ankle, not unlike the Air Jordan XI, and the straight up-and-down “UA” logo has been moved from the side—where it seemed out of place—to the tongue. The cushioning is still Charged foam, the construction is still a woven synthetic (Threadborne is the name), but a carbon fiber wing provides extra support at the ankle as well as some high-tech flash. Curry’s SC logo is molded into the external heel counter, something else that’s becoming a UA Curry staple. But to Curry himself it’s the words molded beneath it that are the most important.
“My favorite mantra and Bible verse is ‘I Can Do All Things,’ something since I’ve been writing on my shoes since my freshman year of college at Davidson,” Curry says. “And to have Under Armour and myself allow that to live on the shoe and be part of who I am and everybody who wears that shoe see that, that’s very powerful.”
Along with the heel counter and the logos, the Curry 3 also uses the Anafoam from the Curry 1 on the medial side, and a colorway was even produced with the same yellow and black camo as the launch color of the 1. If something from the 1 to the 3 seems a bit quick for a self-referential hit, that’s just how it is in these social media days. To quote the Curry 3’s own commercial, “make that old.”
There will be more self-referential hits. Before their final preseason game at Oracle Arena, Curry wore a primarily white low-cut Curry 3, a new “Chef” colorway, like the one he caught so much grief over this summer. At the launch, I ask whether he’d considered making an all-white version the launch colorway. “Well yes, but I was told otherwise, which was very smart,” Curry says with a laugh. “But—during media day, if you check the pictures from there, I wore a special edition colorway of the shoe that was a little subtle punch back. The evolution is all that we’re about, so, yeah.”
As Curry is hitting his prime, his sneaker line is too. Many players have gotten a first signature shoe, not all of them get as far as a third. But once they do get a third, they tend to last a lot longer. Maybe not 28 more, as Jordan has, but something real has been established. Curry knows this. Under Armour knows this. We know this. He’s not done. Not even close. “I think for me [the Curry 3] symbolizes growth, symbolizes elevation, and something that I’m very proud of,” Curry says. “This is our third go-around and I think we’re headed in the right direction.”
