Boardroom connected with DFox, Stephen Curry, designers and executives over the last 12 months to get an inside look at how the Kings guard has found his stride creating his first shoe.
For Sacramento Kings All-Star point guard De’Aaron Fox, there was no downside to signing on with Stephen Curry’s own Curry Brand imprint a year ago. Not only did he love playing in the Flow technology that the brand has included in its sneakers, but he didn’t make much of a supposed rivalry between him and Curry or their Kings and Warriors franchises.
“It’s funny to me because there have been fans that have said, ‘Oh, why would you do that?’” Fox tells Boardroom. “What’s the con of doing it? What’s truly the downside?”
There’s no doubt it’s rare — an active player signing another top player to his own brand. Once he was ready to officially sign on, Fox got the stamp of approval from the brand’s namesake.
“I appreciate you because not many people would do that,” Curry told him.
Since signing on 12 months ago, the Kings guard has established himself in the sneaker space with Curry Brand.
The Signature Deal
As De’Aaron’s first signature shoe, the Fox 1 with Curry Brand is set to launch this weekend, the Kings star is entering even more rare territory by releasing his own namesake sneaker under another active player’s brand. Although Jordan Brand began in 1997 ahead of Michael’s final Bulls season, his imprint didn’t release signature footwear for Carmelo Anthony and others until after his retirement.
“This is business, and I think I can help push his brand forward,” Fox said of Curry Brand. “He’s also helping me push my brand forward. From a business aspect, there’s literally no negatives.”
It’s been exactly a decade since Curry himself was working behind the scenes on his own first signature shoe, which launched in early 2015. Now, as President of Curry Brand after landing a lifetime deal with Under Armour, he’s proud to have selected Fox as his first Curry Brand signature athlete.
“De’Aaron made sure that he was involved with every step of the process,” said Curry. “This whole process is a fun journey, especially when you’re working on creating your first signature shoe.”
For Fox, the prospect of signing a shoe deal that included his own signature model wasn’t weighed lightly.
“That was big in the negotiations. That was a huge factor,” he now says. “I loved the shoes regardless, but that was definitely a big thing. Who wouldn’t want their own shoe? That was a big reason for me signing over.”
As he made his first All-Star game during the 2022-23 season, Fox took on an uncommon path, playing out the season as a shoe free agent. After starting the season out in a handful of shoes from Nike, Converse and New Balance, it was the Curry sneakers with the brand’s Flow technology bottom that he quickly gravitated to.
“When I started wearing Steph’s,” Fox begins. “I just said, ‘Yo, these are the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever played in, and it’s the best traction I’ve ever had.’”
He makes a point to mention that he had told Curry that even before becoming an official endorser. The love for the Curry 1 Flotro, Curry 4 Flotro, and Curry 10 was “organic,” as he calls it.
“I’m just telling him my honest reaction to the shoe because I’m not signed to anybody,” said Fox. “And I would tell you the truth, regardless. I told him the truth and I loved the product. It pretty much just grew from there.”
The Signature Design
As the talented tandem looks to advance Curry Brand in the sneaker game, the process of designing Fox’s first signature sneaker all began on the set of the first photo shoot that Fox and Curry took part in together in July 2023 in the Bay. The brand’s design and marketing execs were all on hand to brainstorm with each player about their future footwear.
“A big thing for me was I wanted it to look like a running shoe,” said Fox. “I felt like where we are now, people aren’t going and getting basketball shoes anymore. We’re literally in a different age. Now, it’s more so running shoes and dad shoes. That’s what’s comfortable for everybody.”
The low cut height and wavy main side panel give the shoe an in-motion read to start. Once the Kings All-Star laces them up on the court, the speedy silhouette fits with his frantic pace and shifty game — “Fast As Fox,” the brand’s tagline reads.
Early on, as Fox brainstormed with Curry Brand designer Ed Wallace, there was a bit of a learning curve for him. This was well beyond giving color input on past PEs, as they looked to create a truly unique signature sneaker from scratch in a year’s time.
“Man, I knew absolutely nothing,” Fox now laughs about the time commitment involved. “I mean — nothing.”
Meetings went down in Sacramento. FaceTimes showed updates for the latest samples that arrived. Fox would hop on Zoom from the comforts of his kitchen table to talk through the details of the design. It was a process he felt truly invested and engaged in throughout by the end.
“Ed would ask me two or three questions, and I’d give him an answer,” recalled Fox. “Then, [by our next meeting] he’d have like 50 different things on a board, and I’d be able to pick which one I like and what I liked about it. Being a shoe designer is not for the weak. [I’d tell him] ‘I don’t know how you got that out of what I told you’ — but that’s why it’s his job. Those guys are super creative.”
The Signature Logo
It’s an exercise that comes right along with a signature shoe — creating a logo. Since the very first brainstorming session, ideas were flying around about what Fox’s logo would look like and represent.
“It was a long process with the logo,” he said. “We were going back and forth on what we wanted it to look like. Obviously, most people’s logos are just their initials. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be a lot more creative. This was a month to two-month process just to get the logo together.”
The signature mark evolved in that time, taking shape as a less literal blend of his first initial, his No. 5 jersey number, and fox animal-inspired curves. The tongue, where the logo is featured, is textured in fox fur.
“I decided that was the logo I wanted,” continued Fox. “A big thing was, ‘How will this look on apparel?’ I wasn’t only worried about how it would look on a shoe. How would it look on a t-shirt, and how would it look on a hoody? That’s why it’s a little softer and not as hard as other logos are.”
Even with the unique element of Fox being signed to Curry Brand, a subsidiary of Under Armour, the shoe still doesn’t come across as overly branded. Curry’s logo is tonal along the heel counter and small on the toe tip. The lone UA logo is on the heel of the Flow outsole.
“There could be a ton of logos on it because of how many different entities there are that are involved,” said Fox. “But they did a fantastic job with how they put it all together.”
Before the start of the season, Fox’s signature logo reveal had its own moment. The neon pop color atop a black and purple colorway got the conversation online going.
“A lot of people love the logo,” said Fox. “We felt like we liked it, but would other people like it? It doesn’t matter if I’m the only person that likes it. But I felt like we came out on top.”
The Signature Detail
Right away, there’s a key piece to the shoe that gives Fox’s sneaker a different feel and look than any of Stephen’s now twelve editions.
“The most obvious feature that you have not seen in any other Curry Brand sneaker is the strap,” said Curry. “It’s this cool feature that adds a little bit of a different aesthetic to the shoe.”
After establishing his hope for a running-inspired silhouette, Fox remembers laying out his next request to the team.
“The strap was the second big thing for me because of the previous shoes that I’ve liked,” said Fox. “I would love for there to be a strap, and it didn’t even have to be functional. I just thought it would make the shoe look good. It’s definitely multi-functional, though, so it’s cool.”
Growing up in the Houston area in the early 2010s, Fox played on an Under Armour-sponsored AAU team in middle school, making for some of his fondest earliest memories in the game when he first became a nationally ranked and rising prospect.
He told the product team that his early favorites were the Black Ice and Bloodline, the strapped-up signature models of original Under Armour athlete Brandon Jennings.
“I started to name off all of these old Under Armour shoes,” said Fox. “They were looking at me like, ‘Damn, he knows his stuff!’ It was cool to have that type of history.”
The key signature touch that fans have picked up on and taken to is not only the support strap that goes across the midfoot but the foxtail edge conceived by designer Ed Wallace.
“All him!” beamed Fox. “I was like, ‘Yo, this is dope!’ I would’ve never thought about that a day in my life. It’s definitely a cool touch, and a lot of people like it.”
A simple tweet showcasing the detail got 2.7 million views. Whether it’s colorways inspired by his family’s favorite Christmas movie, his go-to local taco truck, or pairs paying tribute to his daughter Poppy and son Reign, the strap will be a key piece of real estate for graphics and storytelling to come to life.
The Signature Impact
It’s one thing to be the first signature athlete under Curry Brand, but Fox is also just the fourth basketball athlete in Under Armour’s nearly 30-year history to have his own sneaker. As the face of the Sacramento Kings, he’s also one of the few players in franchise history to have his own shoe.
Since the team moved to Sacramento in 1985, Chris Webber has been the only Kings All-Star to launch his own signature sneaker. Mitch Richmond, Jason Williams, Mike Bibby and DeMarcus Cousins were each featured endorsers for Nike and Jordan Brand during their 916 tenures, though not quite approaching “face of the brand” territory. Fox correctly recalled Bibby falling into this camp, receiving numerous PEs throughout his playing career, but never actually boasting a signature.
I continued to list a few additional Kings players — who shall remain nameless — who also laced up their own exclusives with lesser-known and upstart brands over the years.
“See, shit like that doesn’t count,” laughed Fox.
With his Fox 1 by Curry Brand launch this weekend, he’s entering new territory as a Sacramento King. As he turns 27 years old in a matter of weeks, the signature shoe series is now a key piece of his portfolio as he pushes for a larger marketing profile himself and more recognition for one of the league’s longtime smaller markets.
Just before the season, Fox took part in Curry Brand’s China Tour, where he and Curry visited a handful of cities around Asia and opened the first Curry Brand standalone store in Chengdu. The tour highlighted one of the many ways in which the duo can help eachother elevate their brands, as Fox framed it.
Heading into the launch, Curry Brand has rolled out a batch of well-received ads taking aim at other signature athletes around the league or pointing out just how fast Fox could be in “any shoe.” But in his Fox 1, as the spot points out, he’s “scary fast.”
“We want it to be fresh and related to my personality,” he described. “There’s no hard feelings. Obviously, I go at everyone on the court anyway. That’s where it came from.”
As he continues his All-Star level play to begin the season — dropping 109 points in back-to-back games in November and eclipsing the 10,000 career points mark — Fox is already feeling a difference lacing up his own signature shoe on a nightly basis.
“It truly sets you apart,” he said. “Because every shoe is tailored to you, how you play and operate.”
