Breanna Stewart's new PUMA signature basketball sneakers are the first for a women's athlete in over a decade

• PUMA debuted WNBA superstar Breanna Stewart's new signature shoe ahead of WNBA All-Star weekend.
• The Stewie 1s mark the first signature sneaker for a women's basketball star in over a decade.

For the first time in over a decade, a women's athlete is dropping her own signature shoe.

Breanna Stewart — the 27-year-old WNBA superstar and UConn Huskies legend — adds another accomplishment to her ever-growing list of accolades with the debut of her signature sneaker: PUMA's Stewie 1s.

The release will make Stewart just the 10th women's basketball player ever — and the first in 12 years — with a shoe of her own. In other words, it's a huge deal, and the Seattle Storm star is still just trying to absorb the magnitude of the monumental achievement.

"It has hit me, and it hasn't hit me if that makes sense," Stewart told Insider ahead of the drop. "I'm gonna be the 10th women's basketball player with a signature shoe and the first one in a decade."

"It's putting us back in the spotlight," she added. "It's putting us back where we deserve."

PUMA announced the upcoming release on Friday, kick-starting WNBA All-Star weekend. Stewart, who will serve as a team captain for Sunday's All-Star Game, plans to wear the Stewie 1s publicly for the first time as she makes her fourth career All-Star appearance.

The Syracuse native has anxiously awaited the day she could finally lace up a pair of Stewie 1s to wear in a game. She was "really involved" in the design process from its earliest stages — beginning during the 2021 WNBA season — to make sure "the shoe was perfect [and] compatible with exactly what I want it to feel like as a basketball player."

The "positionless shoe" is designed to be "versatile" — perfect for a frontcourt player with backcourt abilities, like Stewart. While lightweight and breathable, they simultaneously offer targeted support — an important point of emphasis for the two-time WNBA champion, who has torn both Achilles tendons in recent years.

From the moment she first slipped them on her feet, Stewart was confident that she and PUMA got it right.

"I just remember thinking: this is exactly what I want in my shoe," Stewart recalled. "It's exactly what I need in this shoe to be able to be my best."

Stewart said she wanted to use the kicks as a canvas to paint the story of her career, and several Easter eggs hidden within the shoe helped her do so. A "north star" embedded in the shoe's sole pays homage to her high school back in upstate New York, while small lightning bolts represent her allegiance to the Seattle Storm.

To top it all off, the heel of each sneaker is marked with scars to signify her dual Achilles injuries and subsequent remarkable recoveries. The two-time Olympic gold medalist says the unique detail is "my favorite part of the design."

"Going through things that are so traumatic and so tough, and being able to come out on the other side and be better and have a signature shoe and share my story and wear my Stewie 1s with the scars on the outside... it's a proud moment for me to realize all that I've gone through," Stewart said. "And then at the same time for anybody going through a significant injury to show them that you can get back and you can be better."

Stewart hopes that, through the Stewie 1, she and PUMA can "jumpstart something really, really special" within the world of sports. While she's honored and humbled to break through with her own signature shoe after such an apparent gap, Stewart stressed that the push to put "all of the recognition and all of the spotlight on women's basketball" shouldn't stop here.

"We need more of this," she added. "We need more athletes with signature shoes."

The Stewie 1s will be available to the general public in stores and online this fall. A special apparel set — consisting of shorts, leggings, graphic tees, and more — will also launch alongside the sneakers.

"I'm excited to celebrate this with the ones who have helped me along the way, excited to share this with everybody in the basketball space," Stewart said. "I have a way to really connect with the younger generation and really be a role model and someone that you see on the court, but you can also see in the stores."

"Some kids can wear Stewie 1s and then wanna play like me."