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Nalod
Posts: 72131
Alba Posts: 155
Joined: 12/24/2003
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USA
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Bucking the trend: Sneakers for 15 bucks
NBA's Marbury joins forces with clothing chain to make shoes, apparel affordable
By Jeff Rabjohns
jeff.rabjohns@indystar.com
September 14, 2006
Marselle Cook couldn't stop smiling.
A single mother of two boys, Cook was one of hundreds of people who stood in line at Steve & Barry's at the Lafayette Square Mall for autographs on items from the Starbury Collection, a new line of shoes and apparel from NBA guard Stephon Marbury.
While the autographs were nice, Cook was more interested in the price. The two white-and-blue jackets Cook purchased Wednesday evening cost $9.98 each.
The Starbury Collection -- labeled after the New York Knicks All-Star's nickname -- has 50 items, but the shoes have been the headliner.
In a rare move in sports marketing, Marbury teamed with Steve & Barry's, a noted national discount retailer, to create a quality shoe with street cred that sells for an affordable price.
The Starbury One goes for $14.98 -- and Marbury plans to wear them this season.
"I think it's cool," said Cook, 31, an aircraft mechanic who has an 11-year-old and a 17-month-old. "When the Jordans first came out, people were getting killed over shoes. Now Stephon puts these out and they're so affordable, everybody can have them.
"People in poverty can afford his clothes. . . . With boys, you've got to keep up with shoes so they don't get teased at school."
Marbury was in Indianapolis as part of a 25-city tour that runs from New York to California and finishes Sept. 28. Wednesday the scene looked similar to that at an amusement park: a long line of patrons that extended outside the store standing by park-style rope lines. Later Wednesday night, Marbury stopped at the North Park Mall in Marion.
Marbury, who grew up poor as the sixth of seven children in a Coney Island, N.Y., home, said he never could afford high-priced shoes as a kid. He wore the one pair his mom bought him each year at the start of school or what was provided by his traveling team.
"What we're doing is making it accessible for people," Marbury said.
His collection runs opposite of a general trend in basketball-related gear that has ballooned since Michael Jordan's shoes debuted in the early 1980s. Even Wednesday at the Lafayette Square Mall, a few stores down from where Marbury's shoe sold for $14.98, the new Jordans were listed as on sale for $99.99.
In some circles, Marbury has been hailed as making a socially conscious move in a high-profile business. Others have said the Starbury Movement Tour, as it's being called, is a public relations maneuver.
"The movement is serious. It's all over the country, all over the world," Marbury said. "One reporter called it a local story. I don't see nothing local about being on 'Good Morning America,' being on CNN, the shoe being shown on BBC, in Newsweek and Time magazine. I don't know how many basketball shoes are in those publications.
"This isn't about basketball. This is a humane thing."
Marbury's idea of discount gear fits with Steve & Barry's, started in 1985 by buddies from Long Island, N.Y., who were frustrated by the high price of college-related gear and learned most apparel has enormous markups.
"We want to pull the curtain back on the Oz in retailing and tell people, 'You're being had,' " said Howard Schacter, who helps manage the Starbury Collection. "Clothes don't cost as much to make and market as you think they do."
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9/14/2006 2:19 PM
