COLUMBIA, SC — Hattie Wade Rakes is the reason A’ja Wilson loves pearls.
Long before basketball superstardom, when Wilson was around 10 or 11 years old, she received a special gift from the matriarch of her family from Columbia, South Carolina. Rakes, affectionately known as Ms. Hattie, gave her granddaughter A’ja a necklace with a simple, lasting message: “A pretty girl always wears her pearls.”
The 28-year-old Las Vegas Aces center told this story about her late maternal grandmother, who died in 2016 at the age of 95, to a team of Nike footwear and apparel designers, which utilized Wilson’s affinity for pearls as the primary inspiration for her debut signature shoe, the Nike A’One, and apparel line.
Today, the global sportswear company unveiled the Nike A’One Collection, slated to hit retail in May ahead of the upcoming WNBA season. The official launch announcement arrived following a special event hosted by Nike in Wilson’s hometown, a few days after her No. 22 college jersey was retired to the rafters at the University of South Carolina.
“Nike opened up a world of design that I could relate to because of my relationship with my grandmother,” Wilson told Andscape. “I will always say: This shoe may have my name on it, but it’s so much bigger than me. This shoe is so much deeper than me. It’s definitely a shoutout to my family, but also to anyone who wants to break through and be great.”
With her Nike A’One, Wilson becomes just the 14th player in the WNBA’s 28-year history to receive a signature shoe while joining New York Liberty stars Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu, as well as Aces teammate Sydney Colson, as the only four active players in the league lacing up their own models.
But, it’s been an incredibly long time coming for the two-time WNBA champion, three-time league MVP and two-time Olympic gold medalist, who’s heard the refrain — Why doesn’t A’ja Wilson have a shoe — endlessly over the past few years.
“This was one of the most anticipated signature lines ever,” Wilson told Andscape. “Everybody wanted it. I saw all the posts, all the DMs.”
Wilson specifically thought back to the words her beloved college coach Dawn Staley — a WNBA legend and former Nike signature headliner — employed in the past to light a fire in the generational 6-foot-4 center.
“I remember Coach Staley used to yell at me when I was being average. But I don’t want anything average,” Wilson said. “I wanted my shoe to be perfect, because it deserves to be perfect. It deserves its own moment. Because, this shoe is real. And these don’t happen often. So, if we’re gonna do it, let’s do it big.”

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Exactly three decades ago, on Oct. 1, 1995, Sheryl Swoopes became the first women’s basketball player to headline a signature shoe with the launch of her Nike Air Swoopes line.
Following Swoopes, Nike extended the signature treatment to Lisa Leslie in 1998 and Staley in 1999. To this day, Staley has an original pair of her rare debut shoe, the Nike Air Zoom S5 on display in the women’s basketball facility at the University of South Carolina.
Wilson still remembers the first time, during her 2015-16 college season, when she discovered that Staley once headlined her own signature line with Nike.
“I realized Coach Staley had a signature shoe my sophomore year at South Carolina,” Wilson said. “She actually had the silhouette in a case in her office. I remember walking in, like, ‘Is this yours!?!’ And she was like, ‘My logo is on it, isn’t it!?!’ I was like, ‘You’re right. That is your shoe!’ It’s been really dope to see how long she’s been changing the game of women’s basketball, even with a signature shoe.”
“I’m always gonna have that case to show people, especially recruits, like, ‘Hey, this shoe is mine,’ ” Staley told Andscape. “This is what I wore. This is what Nike gave me during my playing days.’ And people have an appreciation for them.”
After Wilson led South Carolina to a national championship in 2017 and became the No. 1 overall pick by the Las Vegas Aces in the 2018 WNBA draft, Staley became one of the first prominent voices in women’s basketball to endorse Wilson receiving her own signature shoe.
“There’s a market for A’ja Wilson,” Staley told Andscape in 2021. “I think A’ja could definitely pump her own shoe. There would be personality to it. There would be an ability to reach a lot of different people. I don’t even know the population in South Carolina, but certainly everybody would be wearing an A’ja Wilson signature shoe.”
As Wilson’s accolades accrued, and she entered the conversation for the title of best women’s basketball player in the world, her goal of one day receiving a signature shoe became apparent.

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Cornell Watson for Andscape
“A’ja wanted her own shoe very badly. Like, very, very badly,” her mother, Eva Rakes Wilson, told Andscape. “I think she felt she deserved it because she had earned it. But, A’ja really believes that, ‘When it’s my time, it’s my time.’ So, I think what makes all this even more special is she let her shoe come to her organically. A’ja didn’t force anybody to give her a shoe. But I think getting one now means the world to her.”
In February 2023, five years after she first joined the brand as a WNBA rookie, Nike officially informed Wilson that she would receive her signature shoe and apparel line. Fittingly, Staley was the first to share the news with Wilson in a recorded video Nike played in the initial meeting, hosted at the company’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, to coronate Wilson as a signature athlete.
Ultimately, Nike and Wilson would take their time crafting the WNBA star’s A’One shoe and apparel collection, utilizing the full 18-to-24-month timeline that’s standard in the footwear industry to design and release a performance signature model.
Yet, from the beginning, Nike’s team of designers had a clear vision of the specific story from Wilson’s journey behind which her debut signature shoe could best be built.
“When we first met, A’ja talked about how important pearls are to her and told the story about her grandmother gifting her the necklace,” recalled Ben Nethongkome, the lead designer of the Nike A’One, who also steers signature lines for NBA stars Ja Morant and Devin Booker, as well as the WNBA’s Ionescu. “We thought that was a really cool story and of turning it into her product — into the A’One.”
In early design meetings, Wilson was impressed by the depth with which Nike’s designers committed to exploring behind the pearls.

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“I remember Nike gave me lookbooks and then I went into a room that was full of different types of pearls,” Wilson said. “There were white pearls, black pearls, pink pearls, yellow pearls. I didn’t even know that many different types of pearls existed and had meaning behind them. Nike really did their homework.”
Essentially, all of the lines incorporated into the design of the Nike A’One — on the upper, the soles and the outline of the primary Swoosh on each shoe — draw direct inspiration from pearls.
“At her core, A’ja values family,” Nethongkome said. “So, what we did was we looked at a cross-section of a pearl. There’s a core that reverberates into layers that ultimately form an actual pearl.”
Nike’s design team even developed the traction pattern of the A’One using layers of lines similar to those that contribute to the formation and aesthetic of pearls. And, notably, at the center of the traction pattern on the bottom of each shoe reads one of the trademark sayings of Wilson’s late grandmother, Hattie Wade Rakes — As a matter of fact, the best is yet to come.
“I’m not surprised at all that my mom is the inspiration behind the shoe because she and A’ja had a relationship like no other,” Eva Rakes Wilson said. “Growing up, A’ja had problems with confidence because she was so tall — always taller than her peers. But my mom made her feel good about herself.

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“My mom was a pearl-wearer and gave A’ja her first real pearls,” Eva Rakes Wilson continued. “She actually gave her own pearls to A’ja. So, anything relating to pearls A’ja loves and believes in, because her grandmother told her pearls could give her the confidence to be successful.”
In addition to paying tribute to Ms. Hattie, the A’One also calls out both of the three-time WNBA MVP’s parents, Eva and Roscoe Wilson. Both individual tattoos that Wilson has on her body inspired by mom and dad are stitched inside the tongue of each shoe.
The heels of the Nike A’One feature a detail that, perhaps more than anything, Wilson wanted to be included on her long-awaited first signature model.
“It was huge for me to have my signature on the shoe,” she explained. “I wanted everyone to know the branding. Like, ‘No, this is A’ja’s shoe.’ So, when you look at the shoe and take pictures of it, you’re always gonna see that A’ja and know the hard work behind it.

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The night before her college jersey retirement ceremony, while speaking at a celebratory event on the University of South Carolina’s campus, Wilson fielded a question she’s likely heard countlessly throughout her basketball career:
“What’s next for you, A’ja?” someone posed from a packed crowd of friends, family and fans.
The hometown hero, with too many accomplishments to list, responded without hesitation.
Let us not forget that five of Nike’s first six WNBA signature headliners — Swoopes, Leslie, Staley, Cynthia Cooper and Chamique Holdsclaw — were Black women. However, neither Nike nor the WNBA had witnessed a Black woman receive her own shoe in over two decades since the 2002 release of Swoopes’ seventh and final model. That was until May 2024, when Nike officially confirmed that, after years of questions and speculation, Wilson had a signature shoe on the way.

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“I have a shoe to sell,” Wilson proudly said into a microphone. “Because, I really put a lot into this, and I just cannot wait to share it with the world.” Sitting onstage next to Wilson, Staley interjected, “Buy the shoe! Buy the shoe! Buy the gear! Buy the gear!”
“I didn’t want people to see my shoe until it was done,” Wilson told Andscape. “Because I wanted it to be perfect.”
Wilson didn’t even show her parents, Eva and Roscoe, until the night of the college jersey retirement ceremony, two days before Nike’s official global unveil on Feb. 4.
“Oh, my God. Beautiful,” Eva Rakes Wilson told Andscape. “Every detail on the shoe is her. And the people who know her will feel that. Because, that’s what Roscoe and I felt. That was A’ja’s whole premise behind wanting a shoe. She wanted it to be her.”
Yet, Wilson isn’t only imagining herself lacing up the Nike A’One.
“Every single day, I think about seeing young Black girls in the A’One,” she said. “I personally love my shoe, but to see young people in it? And young Black girls? I want to tell them to dream as big as they can.”
Because that’s what the woman who gave Wilson her first set of pearls as a young Black girl would say — that, as a matter of fact, A’ja, the best is yet to come. Hattie Wade Rakes was right.
“Honestly, I think my grandma would just tell me, ‘Well done.’ Then, at the same time, she would be like, ‘OK, but I want some more. What’s the next shoe gonna look like?’ ” Wilson said. “My grandma was someone who constantly had me thinking about the next thing. She’d say, ‘Don’t get too high with your highs. Don’t get too low with your lows. But always take it up a notch.’
“So, she would give me the stamp of approval, but say, ‘The A’Two is gonna be even better.’ She’s looking down on me. I know she’s happy and proud. And that’s all I could ever ask for.”