On 6th July 2020, Federer unveiled his first sneaker in collaboration with On, the Swiss Label he had joined as an investor during last fall. The sneaker is named after Federer and is called ‘the Roger’.
Roger Federer was supposed to be competing at Wimbledon this week, but the tournament got cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic, like any other sports event. So now he is spending his summer working on his first sneakers that everyone expected him to wear the next time he’s on the tennis court. However, according to Federer himself, the Roger is not for playing tennis but is “tennis-inspired” and he wants it to be a part of people’s everyday-wear.
On seems to be taking advantage of the fact that sneakers have become a major part of our wardrobe these days with people wearing them with everything from jeans to dresses. It looks classy yet low-profile, and super comfortable of course. The Roger is On’s second lifestyle sneakers, with the first being Cloudnova, which got sold-out very recently and whose CloudTec soles got Federer interested in On in the first place.
However, Federer wanted to hide On’s bouncy technology inside the shoes, even though CloudTec was what made the Swiss brand become so successful. Federer later pointed out that the sneakers will still have the Speedboard, another signature detail of On, that is a plate in the sole to enhance the wearer’s agility.
The Roger isn’t running shoes but as Federer wanted it to go with everything, he wanted On’s best technology to be integrated into them. He also said that the existing tennis-inspired shoes were designed a long time ago with hard rubber soles, and that he wanted the Roger to provide comfort to the users.
On kept experimenting to bring forward exactly what Federer was hoping the Roger to be, and the final shoes were made of 100% vegan leather and was one-third of the weight of most sneakers. The first run is just 1,000 pairs which will be released via an online draw in partnership with Dover Street Market.
If you win, congratulations!
But if you don’t, Federer said that it is okay because they’d be working on the sneakers to make it even better for everyone to wear the Roger whenever and wherever.
