John Kim 
Last week Under Armour hosted a media event in London to unveil Speedform Running – the super-sleek runner inspired by spacesuits and developed in a bra factory. After all, bras exist solely to support by way of perfect fit, and back in the 1960’s, NASA employed the methods of Playtex to create comfortable, well-fitting, and flexible suits for their astronauts during their travels. A half-century later, Under Armour defied convention of sneaker making and created Speedform with the bra in mind and decided to grab the attention of the industry and its consumers with a truly unique approach to footwear design. Sneaker News got a chance to talk with Dave Dombrow and Kevin Fallon, the two minds who spearheaded this movement, discussing the origin and future of Under Armour Speedform, so read on below and pick up a pair now at the UA webstore.
Sneaker News: When we first published the Under Armour Speedform story on our site, the focus on the bra factory aspect was something a lot of our readers picked up on. Do you see this type of unique manufacturing spreading to other sports – perhaps Training or Basketball?
Dave Dombrow: Speedform is more than this shoe – it’s a way of manufacturing. So the whole bra factory thing and its techniques applies to everything we will do with Speedform.
SN: So you’re saying Speedform is a new line of UA footwear?
DD: Speedform is a platform. For us, this shoe is just a taste. You’ll see us expand running first, and then you’ll see us go other places.
SN: Speedform Basketball? Speedform Baseball?
Kevin Fallon: That’s the sort of thing with the Innovation side, we want to first prove that it makes thing better and functions specifically for that sport before we can predict where Speedform is gonna go. So we’re certainly interested in other sports and we’re testing them already, but we want to make sure that it’s appropriate.
SN: Speaking just on the aesthetic, the Speedform has a very anatomical design with the toe ridges, the second-skin upper, and so forth. Was that a core concept going into this new type of manufacturing, or did it originate while UA was exploring this new type of manufacturing?
DD: There’s actually an interesting story about that.
KF: As we were developing this new process – it’s a very 3-dimensionally driven process. It’s a very different way of making shoes, and early on we realized that there were real advantages in making custom products. This was around the 2012 Olympics and we were working with Natasha Hastings (Olympic sprinter), and we made a scan of her foot and made it exact to the shape, and we got the sample back and we thought “wow, that’s really interesting and different”. It looked very fast and athletic, so we said “let’s see what that will look like if we made it a bit more generic”. We recognized that the ridges won’t fit perfectly with everybody’s toes, but they’re not so strong that they’re gonna get in the way.
DD: It’s basically gonna guide your toes, especially the big toe.
KF: But you hit it on the nail – it speaks to that anatomy of the foot and that it’s made differently and that it’s all about fit and being true to the foot. It’s definitely a compelling look that speaks to what we wanted it to look.
SN: So going off a tangent here – is there going to be a version of this Speedform Running shoe without the toe ridges? Basically a more conventional, rounded toe-box?
DD: When you say “without the toe ridges”, well, there’s always gonna be some anatomical form in there, so there might be something in the future that won’t have all the ridges.
KF: We do realize that the design is a bit polarizing.
DD: But it’s performance first – we knew it performed and we knew it work, so we wanted to start there, and you’ll see Speedform expand from there.
SN: Under Armour, as a brand, has established itself firmly as being producers of top-performing footwear. But speaking on the “lifestyle” side of footwear, the brand has some catching up to do. With that said, is the selection of bright colorways a bit of a crossover attempt, seeing the bright colors have been a consistent fad? And is there a separate color team responsible for that?
DD: No, we did all of that. (Laughs) It’s all us.
KF: Dave and I worked very closely from the innovation all the way to the color selection, and there were a lot of things we were trying to accomplish. The performance was Number 1, and we want the brand to be on the map as an innovation company. We want to own “fit”, and we feel like we have that here, so we went with bold colors to let people know that we’re not shy about this. We thought “let’s not worry about a basic black or grey”.
DD: It’s a bold shoe, so we wanted bold colorways to go with it, you know?
KF: I think if you look at generally in our industry what happens, those pure performance products eventually come into lifestyle. Very few brands have become successful at being all about performance and great lifestyle brands. One example to look at is Puma; they’ve done that, but they’re struggling, because then you’re chasing the fashion business and leaving performance behind.
DD: We’re always going to be grounded in performance. That is who we are, and it will eventually transition because we want it to be adopted organically, and at this point our focus is about performance and getting guys like Chris “Macca” McCormack” (two-time Ironman Champion) to validate it, and that, for us, is like the holy grail.
KF: If people want to wear it as a lifestyle shoe, that’s great. We’d love that. But we’re not at a point where we’re gonna go after that.
SN: So looking at this event in London as a whole – it’s more than just being in a city in Europe. It signifies that Under Armour is ready to move outside of the global market, and the deal with the Tottenham Hotspur is a huge indicator of that. Is this the first global event of its kind?
DD: We had the event last year, unveiling the kit for the Tottenham Hotspur, but like this one, where we get to tell stories like Speedform and talk about future innovation, this is definitely the first. It does indeed feel like a global event, and with all of our guys here, it means we’re going to get aggressive with our outward distribution.
KF: When you look at Europe as whole and Japan, they’re very technically-oriented. So you can’t come into Europe and Japan with a mediocre shoe and try to get into specialty stores – it’s just not going to happen. So this signifies that we have shoes and products ready to be put into this specific market.
DD: And they’re not just appropriate, because right now the world doesn’t really need another shoe brand unless it has a really unique point of view and stance, and Speedform does. We’re not faking it – this is real. It’s real manufacturing, it’s a real story, and it really performs.
SN: One thing that stood out when we last talked about the Charge Basketball brand was that UA is meant to be a polarizing brand. You’re either going to love us or hate us, but you’re going to notice us no matter what.
DD: Haha yup! You either love us or hate, but you can’t ignore us.
SN: For sure, Under Armour always brings that type of response from our readers.
KF: You know, I think we’ll get there, where the public will see us as more than we set out to be. It’ll get to the point where we’re authenticated and accepted, and that it’s okay to wear this shoe out with a pair of jeans, and Dave’s really goot at that mix of taking a performance shoe and adding the right colors and details, and we certainly hope that it happens with our business. But our mission is performance first.
SN: So with Speedform – this is just the beginning.
KF: It’s going to grow. You’ll see more versions of it. We reinvented materials, we reinvented processes –
DD: – you can’t just go and find that anywhere. We developed that, we worked with the bra factory and made it proprietary to us. It’s unique. It’s a bra for your foot!
KF: That Apollo (space travel) story for us was really significant because of that reaction. When you have reaction to it being from a bra factory, you question it and wonder if its relevant, but you read the story about how Playtex came in and had a better fitting suit made by these people who were experts of fit, and who understood these multi-layer systems and keep the astronauts mobile and comfortable. We thought if they could do that in the 60’s, we can certainly do that today. I think once people try it on, it’ll have that “ah-ha!” moment.
DD: Runners especially – they’ll see that seamless heel-cup and they’ll say “i’ve never felt a heel-cup like this” and for us, that’s such a huge validation because it’s something that they’ve never felt before. It’s a real breakthrough.
SN: It’s the type of shoe that’ll make you do a double-take, and eventually you’ll feel the urge to try a pair on.
KF: That’s what we’re hoping for. We’ve really got something here and we stand behind it, we’ll continue to make it better, and we’ll see where it goes.
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Many thanks to Under Armour, Dave, and Kevin!
