Entertainment
Coco Gauff is gearing up to release her second signature shoe with New Balance, the Andscape
Behind the scenes of certainly one of the busiest periods of her young profession, 20-year-old tennis star Coco Gauff patiently prepared for the launch of her second signature shoe with longtime sponsor New Balance.
On Aug. 21, the Boston-based apparel company unveiled Gauff’s New Balance CG2 ahead of her return to the U.S. Open as the defending women’s singles champion. At last yr’s Open, Gauff wore her debut signature shoe, the CG1, en route to winning her first profession Grand Slam since turning pro and signing with New Balance at age 14.
“I won my first major in the CG1, so that shoe will always be special to me,” Gauff told Andscape via email. “Having a signature shoe in tennis is a dream come true, and being able to build on the first CG2 is another milestone I’m proud of.”
New Balance will officially release the CG2 for $170 a pair, a yr after celebrating Gauff’s Grand Slam victory with an ad campaign.
“As a brand, we were prepared for Coco’s first Grand Slam win with a campaign that we were excited to launch as soon as she reached that big milestone,” Evan Zeder, New Balance’s tennis marketing manager, told Andscape via Zoom. “But ultimately, every little thing that got here out of her first Grand Slam win was more necessary to us. Coco is someone who all eyes are on now as she continues to transcend tennis.
“She’s one of the best players in the world, with one of the most coveted trophies,” Zeder said. “So how do we continue to grow, not just from a marketing perspective, but from a product perspective? That’s where CG2 comes in.”
Even though the shoe was released in late August, number 2 tennis player in the world is not expected, nor is she contractually obligated, to debut her CG2 on court at the last major tournament of the yr.
“There’s no pressure for Coco to wear the CG2 at the U.S. Open,” Zeder said. “For us, the approach will always be about how Coco can feel her best and most confident on the court. We know she loves her new shoes. But in this current window, she’s focused on winning while we continue to shape her personality by delivering authentic stories.”
Gauff’s upcoming US Open appearance will probably be her sixteenth tournament in 2024. a busy eight-month scheduleShe has played tennis in 11 countries, including at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she served as the U.S. flag bearer during the opening ceremony.
“This year hasn’t given Coco a chance to stop,” Zeder told Andscape. “Her schedule has been so crazy that we’ve tried our greatest not to interrupt her, not to distract her, not to overdo it. We’ve tried to plan for 2024, knowing how busy she’s going to be and that she’s going to be covering and doing other supporting things after she wins her first Grand Slam.
“There’s a lot of internal dialogue and conversations going on with her team about making sure that Coco doesn’t do anything that gets in the way of her main goal of winning tennis matches,” he said. “That’s not to say we didn’t say, ‘We’re launching a new shoe and we need feedback.’ But we hope that Coco doesn’t feel any stress or anxiety about working with New Balance.”
Taking under consideration industry standard timeline of 18 to 24 months to design and launch a signature modelInitial discussions about the New Balance CG2 began in November 2022, about 4 months after Gauff’s first shoe went on sale in July 2022. That means the design process for Gauff’s second signature model began almost a yr before she won her first Grand Slam title at the 2023 US Open.
“We had literally just released her first shoe, and then almost immediately started talking to Coco about the next iteration,” Zeder recalls. “So I think Coco was initially a little surprised by the long-term life cycles that we have with branded products.”
In the fall of 2022, when New Balance hosted Gauff and her family in Boston for the first official meetings to discuss the design of her second shoe, she had only played a handful of tournaments in her debut CG1. So New Balance had rather a lot to work with Gauff, who signed a multi-year contract extension with the brand to proceed her signature footwear and apparel line in 2022.
“When we started talking about CG1, Coco was 16. When we started creating CG2, she was 18,” Josh Wilder, senior footwear manager for tennis at New Balance, told Andscape. “Players go through a lot of changes from 16 to 18, so we had to give her a variety of options that ranged from what we would consider mild to extreme. We sat down with Coco and her whole family with about three different shoe samples. Then we all just broke them down and expressed what we liked and didn’t like about each one.”
New balance
A big a part of New Balance’s strategy for Gauff is focused on maintaining the continuity of the brand’s team of directors and designers who work on its signature footwear, apparel and marketing.
“Seeing how we build products with her and for her, Coco has been around a lot of our team,” Zeder told Andscape. “Early on, she agreed with us on a lot of things, which I think was just because she was a very well-mannered and polite person. Before, we had to dig into her a lot more. Now, we dig into her less because she understands that when we tell her, ‘We love it when you don’t like something,’ the fact that she doesn’t like something helps us just as much as the fact that she likes something. So honestly, we’re able to go through that process more smoothly because she’s more confident in her style and her ability to give feedback. And she’s also started to understand that our work will evolve and bear fruit over time.”
Gauff has openly expressed his appreciation for working with the established creative team at New Balance. After working together on CG1, Cordell Jordan, a black designer, and Jodi Klann, a female design manager, returned to lead the creation of CG2.
“I’ve been with the brand since I was 14, so they’ve been there for me every step of the way and they really care about me as a person—not just an athlete,” Gauff told Andscape. “The entire New Balance team is amazing to work with, so going through this process a second time was great.”
Early on, while planning her sophomore shoe, Gauff uttered a phrase that has guided New Balance for the past two years.
“Coco specifically told us that she wanted the CG2 to be ‘an evolution, not a revolution,’” Wilder said. “The reason is — and she’s mentioned this a few times over the last few years — not everyone who follows her on Instagram plays tennis. So she wanted her shoe to be very versatile and not just be worn on the court, like a lot of tennis shoes that other brands make.”
The CG2 draws direct inspiration from the New Balance 550, certainly one of the brand’s popular lifestyle models and Gauff’s favorite off-pitch silhouette. Gauff’s New Balance team had to get official approval to incorporate certain elements of the 550 into the CG2’s design, most notably on the shoe’s tongue label.
“It was pretty cool that we went to the lifestyle team and said, ‘Hey, we know the 550 is an iconic shoe and brand, but can we make it tennis and make it Coco?’ And the answer was basically, ‘For Coco? Absolutely,’” Wilder recalls. “When we design with Coco, it’s all about her. We don’t do anything to her shoe or her product unless she says so. Our relationship with her isn’t based on our subjective thoughts, but on her specific opinions and what she wants as she evolves as a person and as a tennis player.”
Gauff had one other notable request for the CG2—she saw samples in private sessions ultimately yr’s US Open before testing the shoe for the first time in early December 2023.
“I wanted people to be able to tell the difference between the CG2 and the CG1,” Gauff said. “The first shoe was supposed to tell my story and let people know who I am. The second shoe still has those little details that are relevant to where I am in my life. My family has always been my biggest supporters and taught me how to lift others up. I hope that fans, especially young girls, feel like I support them when they put this shoe on.”
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Soon, the New Balance CG2 will complete its successful development, be launched on the market and at last be the moment when Gauff presents his first shoe.
“I’m very proud and appreciative of the CG1 because it felt like more than just a shoe,” Zeder said. “It was a mid-cut in a tennis category that doesn’t produce many mid-cuts. It represented a woman getting a signature shoe, which we haven’t seen much of historically, especially outside of basketball. And tennis in general hasn’t traditionally produced signature products—a topic we’ve gotten a lot of questions and pushback about. There were people who said, ‘She’s 18 and she’s getting her own shoe, but what else has she won?’ Even though you can look through the NBA and find a ton of signature products made for players who don’t have championship rings. But I think any criticism of creating a signature line for Coco was thrown out the window when she lifted the U.S. Open trophy last year.”
Since first signing Gauff in 2018, New Balance has taken a partnership approach with Coco, which has helped the brand thrive by increasing the variety of athlete signings it has made, including Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, Arizona Cardinals rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. and Brazilian soccer forward Endrick.
“It’s a special time to be at New Balance, and Coco has been with us since we first started authenticating our brand across all sports,” Zeder said. “We can now say with confidence that we have the best athletes in the world wearing New Balance, which is something we’ve never been able to say. For us, Coco has long been a huge part of New Balance’s plan to grow the brand with fewer, bigger, better athletes. And it’s been so much fun to work on creating a product that’s not only unique to the industry and the tennis category, but also unique to Coco.”
“We’re thrilled to have landed our second signature model with Coco,” Zeder said, “and we’re even more thrilled because regardless of her on-court performance, we’re still growing with her.”