“For every Christmas, he would ask for something art-related,” Coco tells PEOPLE about her younger brother Cameron. Coco Gauff is all about family. The 18-year-old tennis star tells PEOPLE she’s “really close” to her family, especially her younger brother Cameron, who helped inspire the design for her latest New Balance colorway.
“We always poke fun that Cameron is the favorite because he’s the youngest,” she laughs. “But no, he just goes on his own path. He’s a true youngest sibling,” says Coco. Cameron, 9, loves to draw, according to his big sister. “For every Christmas, he would ask for something art related,” she says. “Now, on my door in my room, I have one of his drawings up there.”
So when New Balance needed inspiration for Coco’s new colorway, one of New Balance’s product designers gave Cameron a ‘how to make a sneaker’ book. A few weeks later, Cameron sent New Balance a bunch of his drawings and colors, says the sneaker brand. Inspired by his concept, New Balance’s design team decided to produce the style and it became the first New Balance kids performance tennis shoe, Coco CG1 Kids, and is on sale now.
“He was really excited,” Coco says. “I think he kind of sensed it in a way because they asked him to draw on this shoe and then for the paper, so he’s young, but he kind of put two and two together,” she shares. Coco also suspects her younger brother “probably brags about it to his classmates,” she says with a laugh. “He wears the shoes all the time.” Cameron’s design concept was random, his sister says. “I asked him about that and he said it was, ‘Just what I was feeling.’ ”
Coco loved the design when she saw it. The tennis star felt like her brother’s design fit perfectly with her approach on the tennis court. “I think that’s just like what’s fun about being a kid in general,” Coco says of her brother’s spontaneity. “As you get older, you tend to overthink things. But I feel like kids really trust their first instinct and that’s kind of what he did. He just said he just thought the colors look cool together.”
