Growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, he developed a passion for sketching. However, he didn’t know that his childhood hobby would ultimately result in his first sneakers.

On Thursday evening, Converse Shai 001 was officially presented, marking the 26-year-old debut shoes of the Oklahoma Rebture Guunder All-Star Guard, which got here from the first sketch he drew.

Preparation to do It is anticipated that his third guard of All-Star performance, Gilgeous-Alexander, will take over the court in Shai 001 for the first time during the Sunday game All-Star, before the planned version of the Fall 2025 shoe.

“I started the creation process when I started sketching,” recalled Gilgeous-Alexander during a virtual briefing this week, “and I think that at this point I was struck, that I not only have a shoe, but I am able to create a shoe, make shoes, with My expression, my art and how I see basketball shoes. Few players can do it. “

With his debut model Gilgeous-Alexander, he simply becomes 10. A player in basketball history to receive a characteristic shoe from Converse, joining Chuck Taylor, Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, Larry Johnson, Kevin Johnson, Dennis Rodman, Percy Miller Elton Mark.

Shai 001 can also be particularly the first model of the Converse reference number, released for 15 years The third and last model of the brand He fell in October 2010.

“For me it was about recognizing the past, history and all the basics that Converse was in basketball, but I completely turned it on, transforming it, shaping my expression, my form of art and my sense of what basketball shoes can look like,” said Gilgeous- Alexander. “The platform and the situation I have moved in results from many, many years of hard work. For this reason, I can show the world what I think and what I feel in a basketball shoe. “

After signing the contract with the Converse in 2020, Gilgeous-Alexander agreed to the lucrative, a few years of extension of the contract with the oldest brand of basketball footwear, founded in 1908 and a subsidiary from Nike since 2003. The role of CONVERSE Basketball creative director and can receive a signature line in 2025

Accidentally, the announcement of the upcoming debut shoe of Gilgeous-Alexander appeared during the ninetieth anniversary of Chuck Taylor’s signature so as to add to Converse All-Star, strengthening the classic figure as the first characteristic shoe in the history of basketball.

Time couldn’t be more matched to Gilgeous-Alexander, going out on average 30 points in the game in the All-Star seasons, while turning the heads in the Arena tunnels Unmatched God of NBA. In September, he officially began as creative director Converse Basketball just before the start of the NBA season 2024-25.

“Since Shai was announced a creative director, he was very involved in the trial from the signature logo to the signature,” said Brodrick Foster, senior sports style director for Converse. “When he came in, he called,” he asked so many inquiries to our development management, our project team. Shai treats his work very seriously relating to all facets of the creation process. “

The title of Creative Director Gilgeous-Alexander dictated one essential and superior detail about the design of his first characteristic shoe-completed creative control.

“What is great in Shai is unconventional, on the pitch and beyond. His game is simply something that we have never seen in the NBA before. But also his style – said Foster. “What translates right into a product is that this unconventional shoes that you’ve got never seen before. I even have been in basketball all my life. I even have been making shoes for the last 18 years and I even have never seen such a basketball shoe before. “

The vision of Shai 001 began with Gilgeous-Alexander with the transfer of skills, which he polished outside basketball so long as he remembers. First, he manually drew a design of his characteristic logo – mirror 2, representing his duality as an athlete and creativity, through the Jersey number. In December last 12 months, Converse presented a logo that was eventually embossed in the language of the final version of SHA1 001.

After landing the logo, Gilgeous-Alexander shot to sketch his characteristic figure. The point guard knew exactly how he desired to materialize his first shoe. He just needed to look from the mind on paper.

“I’ve sketched all my life,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “When I knew I could have this trail on a basketball shoe, I conducted research on shape and form. And then I put it in the sketch and worked on it until I got to the product I liked, and I thought that you could show the group. “

Although it is commonly that characteristic stars try to attract after the design process, the athlete rarely enters early conversations and meetings with their very own sketches – not less than those which might be useful. So you possibly can say that Gilgeous-Alexander was delighted with the Converse design team after the initial presentation of his own imagination about how SHA1 001 can present itself.

“I have been working with the best athletes for 20 years and I have never met an athlete who can sketch like Shai, “said Steven Keating, senior creative director of the global. “When we met, I introduced myself and told him that my whole role is to revive your vision. I had no idea what it meant at the moment. I didn’t know what design skills he had. He completely surprised me.

“Working with an athlete who can sketch and has a vision was really special in my experience.”

The basic concept of Gilgeous-Alexander created by placing its own pencil on paper served as a guide for Converse, which maintained the commitment to supply each of the design director’s design director.

“Shai had an original vision – a sketch,” said Keating. “It really has not changed much. We made him perfect, really obsessively in every detail on this topic. Many connections with Shai, many meetings with him also live through every detail. So the vision is still intact. Over time, it was really a treatment, really making sure you know exactly what comes alive in his head. “

The query is: what number of iteration did it need to enhance the Shai 001 to the namesake standards?

“I have four or five samples in my home. At the beginning it was much more volumetric, said Gilgeous-Alexander before he mentioned some corrections that were made to the figure. “Slimmed, cut, I took a couple of pieces, added a couple of pieces for comfort. Yes, I’d say about 4 or five iterations. ”

By maintaining performance as a priority, the Design Converse team particularly distinguished the Gilgeous-Alexander freight movement, attempting to support the movement through the outer sole of the shoe.

“Shai is extremely dynamic, extremely agile outside,” said Keating. “Stop-Start was part of our thought process when we began to engineer this outer sole. We spent a lot of time working with a movie in which he played … We designed a pattern of adhesion, which was specially designed for the style of Shai. It also explains, if you are not Shai, you are a normal basketball player or if you are looking for only a beautiful, stylish shoe, it will continue to work for you. Certainly adhesion was No. 1. “

The head of the shoe and patentist Stop-Start is fast and concise in its class and sell the sole pattern.

“Adhesion is in my opinion-a-flus,” he said.

However, the pride of Gilgeous-Alexander from the general shape and aesthetics of Shai 001, described by its original sketch, permeates. The final product of the shoe provides a transparent blown upper with a wound cover and a castle with a castle.

“My favorite part of the shoe is a zipper, pouring and wing,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “This was to add a dimension to the shoe, and also give the shoe a slightly more volume character when it is worn from the court. I wanted to make sure that these parts of the shoe were identified, regardless of where you were in the arena. No matter how far you were, you could see it. Oh, this wing means Shai 001, and the puff and zipper is unique for Shai. I want people to feel that this is something they have never seen before, and something they fell in love with. “

It is barely right that Gilgeous-Alexander-Lider MVP, Stybender and Creative Director-now has its characteristic tennis, introducing the long-awaited recent starting of the oldest basketball footwear brand.

“I think Shai brings such a dynamic aspect of our brand and we want to really celebrate it,” said Keating. “Of course, we have over a hundred years of an amazing product in our archive, an amazing story. But I think about the work we have done with Shai and the vision that he lived with us as a future archive. In 100 years we will look back. People will come to our archive and find Shai 001, and it will be a new chapter for the brand. This is only the rebellious nature of Converse, a rich story we have. We definitely embodied it, but Shai 001 is completely new. A completely new form for us. He puts us on an amazing future in basketball. “