National Basketball Association - Houston Rockets

Houston Rockets Uniforms

Rockets' uniforms should be better fit

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
© 2003 Houston Chronicle

Fashion being a personal thing, opinions varied. But as Rockets players and coaches checked out the new uniform designs under consideration last week, there was one unanimous conclusion: They were better than anything the Rockets are wearing now.

The Rockets have higher aspirations for their new duds, to be unveiled in August or September and to be worn next season, than merely being better than clown suits. With that in mind, the organization has commissioned Eiko Ishioka, an Academy Award-winning designer, to come up the Rockets' new look.

Eiko, as she is known, came up with roughly 15 designs that were whittled to six she proudly showed last week.

"It's a very good meeting," Eiko said. "In December I showed about 15 ideas. Most came from my own ideas. Ten people discussed together and developed Eiko's designs. Now I have more conservative ideas. Basically I want to create a uniform that is very unique and I hope will be a design leader.

"I am an outsider. Basketball uniforms are so old-fashioned. The Houston Rockets uniform can be a leader. I want it to be more futuristic."

Tim McDougall, Rockets vice president of marketing, shuddered at the word "futuristic." He assured there would be no grinning Rockets, no garish stripes and most of all, no chance the team would become such slaves to a trend of the moment that the uniforms would be out of style before they get washed.

"She has certain tendencies," McDougall said. "A lot of Eiko stuff is very far out. The uniform design will be closer to the center than the edges. What we're looking for is a simple, classic palette, less cartoony, less busy, more streamlined, a more classy look."

Beyond that, McDougall could not be more specific, in part because he didn't want to be, but also because there was no consensus about the varied ideas on display Thursday.

There are indications the Rockets are strongly leaning toward changing their dominant color back to red (perhaps with silver lettering) rather than their road blue.

"That is not determined yet, but it is clear that our fans still consider red the team color," McDougall said. "Red might be part of our DNA."

But choosing a color is not as simple as looking at swatches. McDougall said several uniform and logo designs do not work well in red. But that could be considered a good sign, another indication the Rockets will not repeat the mistake or try squeezing every idea on their uniforms and in their logo, no matter how it looks.

"We want it simple," McDougall said. "A logo should look good on a baseball cap." In other words, no teeth-gritting rockets.

McDougall said no decisions have been reached. He wanted the players' input about the look of the uniforms, but also about the performance of different cuts and fabrics.

"We wanted to make sure the players felt part of the process," he said. "That wasn't the case the last time around. We got different opinions. We could not do a design to answer every comment. Some of the comments were opposite of the other guys'. But the coaches and players liked seeing them. We wanted to make sure we got their feedback on design, but also on performance issues: shoulder size, the opening, the fabrics."

Those details will be worked out. For now, the players saw what they needed to see -- or really, didn't see what they have had to see in the mirror for years -- stripes, teeth and exhaust fumes.

"They looked pretty good," guard Steve Francis said. "I like most of them. All of them were better than we have now."

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