While growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander developed a passion for sketching. Yet little did he know that his childhood hobby would ultimately lead to his first sneaker.
On Thursday night, the Converse SHAI 001 was officially unveiled, marking the 26-year-old Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star point guard’s debut signature shoe, which came to life from an initial sketch he drew himself.
Gearing up to make his third-straight All-Star appearance, Gilgeous-Alexander is expected to take the court in the SHAI 001 for the first time during Sunday’s All-Star Game, ahead of the shoe’s scheduled fall 2025 release.
“I started the creating process when I started sketching,” recalled Gilgeous-Alexander during a virtual briefing this week, “and I think at that moment it hit me that, not only do I have a shoe, but I am able to create a shoe, make a shoe, from my expression, my art and how I see a basketball shoe. Not many players get to do that.”
With his debut model, Gilgeous-Alexander becomes just the 10th player in basketball history to receive a signature shoe from Converse, joining Chuck Taylor, Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, Larry Johnson, Kevin Johnson, Dennis Rodman, Percy Miller, Dwyane Wade and Elton Brand.
The SHAI 001 is also notably the first signature model Converse has released in 15 years since Brand’s third and final model dropped in October 2010.
“For me, it was about acknowledging the past, the history and all the groundwork that Converse has been to basketball, but completely turning it, twisting it, shaping it into my expression, my art form, and my feeling of what a basketball shoe could look like,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “The platform and situation I’ve been put in is because of many, many years of hard work. Because of that, I’m able to kind of show the world what I think and what I feel in a basketball shoe.”
After signing with Converse in 2020, Gilgeous-Alexander agreed to a lucrative, multiyear contract extension with basketball’s oldest footwear brand, founded in 1908 and a subsidiary of Nike since 2003. Gilgeous-Alexander’s new Converse deal outlined two major stipulations — he would assume the role of creative director of Converse Basketball and receive a signature line confirmed to release in 2025.
Coincidentally, the 2024 announcement of Gilgeous-Alexander’s upcoming debut signature shoe arrived during the 90th anniversary of Chuck Taylor’s signature being added to the Converse All-Star, cementing the classic silhouette as the first-ever signature shoe in basketball history.
The timing could not have been more fitting for Gilgeous-Alexander, coming off averaging 30-plus points a game in back-to-back All-Star seasons while turning heads nightly in arena tunnels as the unrivaled style god of the NBA. Last September, he officially began as Converse Basketball’s creative director right before the 2024-25 NBA season started.
“Since Shai was announced as creative director, he has been extremely involved in the process from the signature logo to the signature shoe,” said Brodrick Foster, Senior Director of Sports Style for Converse. “When he came in, he dialed in — asked so many questions to our development leadership, to our design team. Shai takes his work extremely seriously when it comes to all facets of the creation process.”
Gilgeous-Alexander’s title of creative director dictated one important and overarching detail to the process of designing his first-ever signature shoe — complete creative control.
Converse
“What’s great about Shai is he’s unorthodox, on and off the court. His game is just something we’ve never seen before in the NBA. But also, his style,” Foster said. “What translates into the product is this unorthodox shoe that you’ve never seen before. I’ve been around basketball my whole life. I’ve been around making shoes for the last 18 years, and I’ve never seen a basketball shoe like this before.”
The vision for the SHAI 001 began with Gilgeous-Alexander channeling a skill he’s been honing outside of basketball for as long as he can remember. First, he hand drew the design for his signature logo — a mirrored 2, representing his duality as an athlete and creative, through his jersey number. Last December, Converse unveiled the logo, which was ultimately embossed on the tongue of the final version of the SHA1 001.
After landing the logo, Gilgeous-Alexander took a shot at sketching his signature silhouette. The point guard knew exactly how he wanted to materialize his first shoe. He just needed to get the look from his mind onto paper.
“I’ve been sketching my whole life,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Once I knew I was going to be able to have that imprint on a basketball shoe, I did some research on shape and form. And then I put it together in a sketch and kept working on it until I got to a product that I liked, and thought was presentable to show to the group.”
While it’s not uncommon for signature headliners to try their hand at drawing once the design process begins, an athlete rarely enters the early conversations and meetings with their own sketches — at least those that are usable. So, it’s fair to say Gilgeous-Alexander struck awe in Converse’s design team upon initially presenting his own penned imagination of how the SHA1 001 could manifest.
“I’ve been working with top athletes for 20 years in this field, and I’ve never met an athlete that can sketch like Shai,” said Steven Keating, global senior creative director. “When we first met, I introduced myself and told him that my entire role here is to bring your vision to life. I had no idea what that meant at the moment. I didn’t know what kind of design skills he had. He completely surprised me.
“Working with an athlete that can sketch and has a vision was truly unique in my experience.”
The foundational concept Gilgeous-Alexander created by putting his own pencil to paper served as a guide for Converse, which maintained a commitment to delivering on every single one of the creative director’s design cues.
“Shai had the original vision — the sketch,” Keating said. “It really hasn’t changed much. We’ve been making it perfect, really obsessing every single detail on this thing. A lot of calls with Shai, a lot of meetings with him live going through every single detail, as well. So, the vision is still intact. It’s really been a curation over time, really making sure you know exactly what’s in his head is coming to life.”
Converse
The question is, how many iterations did it take to perfect the SHAI 001 up to its namesake’s standards?
“I have four or five samples at my house. It was a lot bulkier at first,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, before listing some of the tweaks that were made to the silhouette. “Slimmed down, cut down, took some pieces out, added some pieces in for comfort. So, yeah, I’d say about four or five iterations.”
Maintaining performance as a priority, Converse’s design team specifically dissected Gilgeous-Alexander’s trademark stop-start move, seeking to support the motion through the traction pattern of the shoe’s outsole.
“Shai is extremely dynamic, extremely agile on court,” Keating said. “The stop-start was part of our thought process as we started engineering this outsole. We spent a lot of time working with film of him playing … We engineered a traction pattern that’s specifically designed for Shai’s style of play. That also then translates to, if you’re not Shai, you’re a normal basketball player or if you’re just looking for a beautiful, stylish shoe, this is still going to work for you. Traction was No. 1 for us, for sure.”
The headliner of the shoe, and patenter of the stop-start, is quick and concise in his grade and sell of the outsole pattern.
“The traction is, in my opinion — an A-plus,” he said.
However, Gilgeous-Alexander’s pride in the overall shape and aesthetic of the SHAI 001, outlined by his original sketch, permeates. The shoe’s final product delivers a distinct puffed upper featuring a winged shroud and locking zipper.
“My favorite part of the shoe is the zip, the puff and the wing,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It was to add dimension to the shoe, and to also give the shoe a little bit of a bulkier feel, when worn off the court. I wanted to make sure that these parts of the shoe were identifiable, no matter where you were in the arena. No matter how far away you were, you could see that. Oh, that wing means the Shai 001, and the puff and zipper is special to Shai. I want people to feel like it’s something they’ve never seen before, and something they’re in love with.”
It’s only right that Gilgeous-Alexander — an MVP front-runner, stylebender and creative director — now has his own signature sneaker, ushering in a long-awaited new beginning for basketball’s oldest footwear brand.
“I think Shai brings such a dynamic aspect to our brand and we want to really celebrate that,” Keating said. “Obviously, we’ve got over a century of amazing product in our archive, amazing history. But I think about the work we’ve done with Shai and the vision that he’s brought to life with us as the future archive. So, 100 years from now, we’re going to look back. Folks are going to come to our archive and find the SHAI 001, and it’ll be a brand-new chapter for the brand. It’s just the rebellious nature of Converse, the rich history we have. We’ve definitely embodied that, but the SHAI 001 is brand new. Completely new form for us. It’s going to set us up for an amazing future in basketball.”
