The internet has not been kind to Stephen Curry’s shoes. When Under Armour debuted the all-white Curry 2 Low “Chef” in June—the blandest iteration of the reigning NBA MVP’s line of signature sneakers—it was subjected to one of the most thorough roastings Twitter has ever seen, its reputation quickly charred to a punchline. And rightly so. The Chef looked like a mayo-on-white-bread sandwich served on a rubber sole. It looked like a shoe only Jerry Seinfeld could love. It looked like it might come with keys to a Buick and a Sam’s Club card. It looked like a shoe you’d ignore on the sales rack at Marshalls. As many rermarked, it looked like a nurse’s shoe. A lunch-lady shoe. It was not a good shoe.
And yet, as in so many other instances, Twitter’s opinion doesn’t appear to have counted for much. In its second-quarter earnings report released Tuesday, Under Armour announced that, for all the laughter, Curry’s shoe line was doing just dandy. “Footwear net revenues increased 58% to $243 million from $154 million in the prior year’s period, primarily reflecting the continued success of the basketball category led by the Curry signature basketball line as well as growth in running and cleated categories,” the company stated.
Does this mean boring has triumphed? Has the all-white Chef 2 turned out to be the Coldplay of basketball shoes—milquetoast, mocked, and massively popular? I wouldn’t quite go that far. Under Armour did apparently sell out of the Chef online a few days ago. But Canaccord Genuity analyst Camilo Lyon has estimated that the Chef also only makes up about 5 percent of sales for the Curry 2 line, which includes high-tops and low-tops in all sorts of color combinations that, mercifully, look a bit less orthopedic.
The bigger takeaway is that while Under Armour is still having difficulty designing shoes that can win over fashion-conscious sneaker obsessives as well as actual athletes (Slate’s John Swansburg has written extensively on this), all the online laughter directed at the Chef doesn’t seemed to have damaged Curry’s brand. That sets the company up pretty nicely for the eventual release of the Curry 3, which might make a little aesthetic progress.
Then again, that white-on-white Chef did sell. To some, bland is apparently beautiful.
