DIADORA MAVERICK OG

Later this week, Diadora brings back one of its most revered icons. Originally introduced in 1987, the Diadora Maverick blazed trails that are still burning. When chunkier performance tennis shoes first began to cross over from footwear worn for a specific sport to something worn simply for style, the Maverick was there at the forefront.

In the early 1980s, Diadora was a dominant force in the tennis world. Aside from being worn by some of the top players in the game, Diadora’s shoes presented people at home with the ability to look and feel like the pros, offering top-of-the-line technical performance coupled with an unrivaled sense of style.

While there were a number of brands at the time providing quality tennis sneakers, it was that sense of style and flare emanating from its exotic Italian mystique that set Diadora apart from the rest. While this reputation was already well-known in the tennis world, models like the B.Elite started to make their way outwards into the general public in a far more ubiquitous way.

By the time the Maverick hit the scene in 1987, tennis fashion was now being embraced in a more casual lifestyle context, particularly in U.S. cities like NYC, Philly, Chicago and Detroit. The clean looks and lofty price tags on high-end tennis wear made it a heavily adopted status symbol for the trendsetting hustlers of the day, and before long, that chain reaction spread everywhere you looked.

The Maverick was the perfect embodiment of that look. It flaunted a full-grain calfskin upper with a double reinforced toe. Its richly colored accents and formstripe were in beautiful buttery nubuck. But it was the Italian flag on the ankle collar — a touch that meant everything in an age of sportswear when anything to do with Italian culture was in extremely high demand — that made it one of the must-have shoes of its time.

Since its original run, the Maverick also saw an emergence in the late 90s and early 2000s as a retro resurrection brought everyone back into the fold once again. Seen on the feet of a who’s who list of the most prominent East Coast and Midwest rappers of the time, the Maverick soon had second life and a well-received return campaign.

Now over 30 years since its debut, a true Diadora classic is once again returning to the shelves, designed in Italy and made in the USA. Available in three colorways — White/Blue Denim, White/Simply Green, White/Swedish Blue — the Maverick will release this Saturday, October 19th, in-store and online at PackerShoes.com.