Storelli are the new boys making big noise in New York by tackling the lonely world of football injuries with a protection collection built to withstand the physicality of the game. Lightweight and innovative, Storelli keep your foot firmly on the accelerator while offering a seat belt that keeps you on the road for even more miles.
The brand are investing a whole lot of research, development and money in creating products with the sole aim of maximising your season through injury prevention. Action not reaction. Like Under Armour and Nike, Storelli was founded by former athletes on a mission to revolutionise the performance equipment market. With an emphasis on performance, as well as a higher purpose that involves being the best you can be, Storelli are forging their own path with radical design and creative solutions built on a disruptive mentality, as Chief Marketing Officer Mark Schermers tells us.
“Our founders, Claudio Storelli and Jing Liang, played together at New York’s Chelsea Piers. They and their team-mates would often pick up injuries and felt that the psychological effects of getting injured were just as great as the physical. Whilst the game and players have evolved in recent years, the equipment wasn’t keeping up. Players at every level are shelling out hundreds of dollars for boots, but there wasn’t a brand serving products with a protective component to keep them on the pitch and in those boots.”
Like many underdog brands, Storelli has an attitude. Straight out of Brooklyn, New York, the hardscrabble city has helped shape the brand’s identity. “We have certainly embraced Brooklyn as a part of our company DNA. Football has never been a hotter topic in New York than it is now and the timeliness of our arrival drives us to think differently about how to launch our football brand. With New York as our backdrop, we are focused on promoting our products in the context of the ‘Gotham Side of Football’, inviting players around the world to see the beautiful game from our unique perspective.”
A lot of companies talk about innovation and disruption, but few take the risk to really make bold leaps. Storelli are making moves with the aim of changing the game in the athletic gear business. “Brands have boot tunnel vision. That’s where we keep seeing innovation, and we can hardly blame them – that’s where the money is. Making mainstream protection, or rather, making protection mainstream, is a more expensive proposition.”
New technology has traditionally been slow to be embraced in football, and Storelli are under no illusions that their path into the game will be easy. The brand essence revolves around being the underdog, being hungry and competing against the best. “Success won’t happen overnight,” admits CEO Claudio Storelli. “We’ve found a very receptive ear in the MLS who have been at the forefront of innovation in the game, and we find that there is a new breed of coaches who are all too aware of the costs of having their players watching injured from the sidelines. We loathe to be a fearmongering company, but we do feel a responsibility to players to lay out the facts and to keep innovating our gear based on the feedback we get from them.”
Storelli are hardly the first brand with ambitions to disrupt an industry, but with a brand portfolio that provides energy and differentiation from imitators, the opportunity is there. “There is a sea of sameness out there and the category is ripe for disruption,” Claudio explains. “When a market is dominated by a select few brands focused on limited product categories, innovation suffers and there is aa challenger brand has the opportunity to serve the untapped needs of the everyday athlete. We know we will become a big player in the football world not by shelling out hefty endorsements, but by gaining credibility, leading innovation and offering every player a distributive voice.”
The US company exemplify authenticity and personality without being budget-busting. They’ve gone from a small start-up to one of the industry’s most exciting new brands. It might seem natural to assume that a brand with a focus on protection would be associated with American football or rugby, but that’s a dated mindset – the emphasis is fully on football. “Storelli is made by and for football players, it’s that simple. Our gear is designed in Brooklyn and tested daily on pitches nearby. We get immediate feedback on our gear and make changes accordingly. We don’t believe in gimmicks. Every panel on our gear is designed to solve a specific need — whether that be nasty tackles to the lower legs, turf burn injuries from sliding or heavy impact blows to the torso or head.”
Storelli have put in all the groundwork before launch. Unlike numerous wannabe breakthrough brands, Storelli have found their identity – they know who they are and what they want to achieve. They’re prepared. Everything is in place for them to have a real crack at the football industry and to stand tall while others have face-planted over the first hurdle.
So what’s next? The brand have set a high bar for the future. “We hope to see the brand present on all football pitches across the world in the next ten years. We will likely be seen more as a sports technology brand than a protection brand by then, adapting to the needs of the ‘Next-Gen’ athlete. Most of all, we hope to keep our edge and stick to our roots as a challenger brand that is still fundamentally striving to make next-generation products to allow the best players in the world to keep playing at their best.” Play on.
View the full Storelli collection here.
