On Tuesday evening, Caitlin Clark rolled as much as the Mohegan Solar Area in Connecticut for her first official WNBA sport. The NCAA’s all-time main scorer was the very image of fashion and poise—chopping the effortlessly dominant determine you’d count on of the yr’s first-overall draft choose and the presumed future face of the league. The key to her robust first impression? Her sneakers: Within the tunnel, Clark sported a crisp pair of Nike x Tiffany & Co. Air Pressure 1 1837s. It was a savvy alternative from an athlete who simply reportedly signed a landmark eight-year endorsement cope with Nike, signaling that she is aware of her kicks and was exhibiting up prepared for a combat.
The Tiffany Air Pressure 1s, launched final March to large hype, are splashy sneakerhead grails with high-luxury bona fides. That makes them the best sneakers to bust out within the WNBA tunnel, the place exhibiting off your model has develop into nothing lower than a requisite artwork. The sneakers—which retailed for $400 and now fetch six figures on the resale markets—are the uncommon assertion piece that displays properly on the wearer’s standing and style. They are a robust reminder, in different phrases, that Clark is a real famous person.
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However these aren’t any atypical luxurious sneakers, both: They’re nonetheless black Air Pressure 1s, and whatever the Tiffany-blue accents, that sends its personal type of message. Black AF1s have a protracted and storied historical past as the get-it-done, take-no-shit sneakers, worn by these able to get proper all the way down to enterprise. There’s even precedent for the colorway in current WNBA historical past: Las Vegas Aces star A’Ja Wilson wore a pair earlier than Sport 4 of the Finals final season—after which made good on the risk they so forcefully implied. Wilson wielded her black AF1s as an intentional intimidation tactic. Clark could have had one thing related in thoughts—simply with an elevated, Tiffany-branded twist to it.
Clark in the end struggled a bit in her WNBA debut, posting 20 factors and 10 turnovers as her Indiana Fever fell to the Connecticut Solar. However whereas making an attempt to acclimate herself to the tempo of the league, she nonetheless managed to show her psychological toughness, hanging in because the opposing staff threw every little thing and extra at her in a tough welcome to the W. Her Tiffany Air Pressure 1s, then, should still have paid off: Whereas Caitlin Clark nonetheless has a methods to go in proving herself on the professional degree, she made it clear that she’s able to carry a combat to the sport that her sneakers clearly promised.
