How it all began

Are you tired of seeing retail sneakers only being available to those who can afford bots? Are you tired of seeing sneakers being sold with huge profits by resellers? Are you tired of seeing that premium clothing and sneakers are only available for the privileged few?

We, a group of friends and now the founders of UA Fashion, were tired of it too.

As a group of friends, we were real sneaker fanatics, so called ‘sneakerheads’. We were really passionate about it, even though we couldn’t afford those sneakers. But that didn’t impeach us to read everything about them and informing ourselves about the latest news in the sneaker world. 

I, one of the co-founders of UA Fashion, worked at Nike at the time, and then worked my way up into supply chains and assembly. And that’s how it all started …

 

Fashion and sneaker industry: the shocking truth

With time, I was deployed overseas to low cost countries like China, Vietnam and the Philippines. What I noticed was that there are thousands of the most popular and exclusive sneakers that get left behind every year. They serve to replace pairs that got an inspection fail or have a defected batch.

Just like that.

I concluded my research and as it turned out, these factories (hired by big brands like Nike and Adidas) produce 2-5 times the amount of supplies they need for their productions or release and divide the entire manufacturing process into multiple different factories to prevent a single one from gaining any design insights or the power to have access to the full supply chain or sell these exclusive items themselves in the first place. Finally they are all brought together at a private assembly chain ready to be assembled by the big brands themselves!

The main reason for all this is that they need these extra pairs ‘just in case’ – to replace the rejected pairs after they fail to pass the final quality inspection since they could never be late for an announced item release date. All these extra pairs that are left over, are produced at the same factory, by the same workers, and with the same materials, they just didn’t get licensed/authorized/quality checked by the clothing/sneaker company.

Well, guess what happens once enough pairs pass the control & these huge companies reaches its quota?

 

Thousands of pairs get left behind

Can you believe that?

As crazy as it might sound, big brands release very limited stocks into the market to create the scarcity and scale up prices. The rest left behind are just meant to be discarded. If you check out the history on how the Supreme “hype” has came about, I’m sure you’ll know exactly what I mean.

 

That’s how we came up with this idea

As a real streetwear and sneaker fanatic, I couldn’t watch all these sneakers get discarded like that. We had to be more efficient and find a solution for all these sneakers. 

With the majority of these brands outsourcing their production in China due to cheap labor costs, with enough understanding of how they worked and they’re language, it made my expedition fairly easy. However, it took me a long time before any sign of success was shown because you just can’t walk up to such places or simply find them on the internet, they’re not meant to be found! As I discovered further and built my network along with a few other partners involved, asking these factories to sell us those leftovers  as “backdoors”… I know this term seems unheard off, and we were often being rejected…With time and countless amount of efforts, we were able to gather every single un-assembled parts out there.

What would they do with them anyways?

Fast forward today, we have the largest network of manufacturers that produce sneakers for all major brands, such as Adidas, Nike, Supreme, etc and yet we do not have to rely on them. We sell exclusive models like and even designer brands (make sure to check them out on our website). We sell them at a much more reasonable price by being able to get our hands onto every single part of each clothing and sneaker material that is used exactly on retail items through undisclosed factories and then have them assembled in our own warehouse with full precision and attention to details, ensuring that everyone of you could put them on with full confidence. 

This is also where our name comes from: UA means ‘Unauthorized Authentic’. These clothes and sneakers are ordered by big brands, but they are not authorized to be sold since they are used for replacement. In terms of quality, Unauthorized Authentics are identical to originals since they are produced in the same factories (using the same exact materials) as the authentic product when they were commissioned by shoe manufacturers and companies.

The key to our success was to be able to hire the highly underpaid & talented workers from these big brand factories to join us instead.

This is the closest you could get without breaking the bank or your pockets, owning these highly limited & iconic streetwear fashion.

 

The alternative

We are so happy to finally having found an alternative to paying almost a paycheck for just one pair of sneakers. The big brands, like Nike and Adidas, release a limited amount of pairs just to scale up the price and create a “hype”. In today’s world, you even have to buy bots (that cost a few thousand dollars) to be able to have a chance to get a retail pair of sneakers! These pairs are then sold for thousands of dollars by resellers that are filling their pockets. 

This is the reason why premium sneakers and clothes are only affordable for the privileged few, and not for most people. That’s why we are a great alternative for people that want to own these highly limited & iconic streetwear fashion, without breaking the bank of their pockets.