When Oros’ Director of Operations Aaron Laws asked Michael Markesbery Monday night if he was watching “the game,” the company’s CEO and co-founder said he had no clue what Laws was talking about.
“And then he goes ‘Dude, Paul George is wearing the 39A Flight,’” Markesbery said.
George, small forward for the Los Angeles Clippers and seven-time NBA All Star, wore a jacket by Portland apparel startup Oros to the Los Angeles Rams-Arizona Cardinals game on Friday.
Markesbery said there was no deal made with George to wear the jacket, and he had no clue the basketball player would be wearing his brand that night.
“It was totally serendipitous. … If we ever sent (George) a jacket, it was over a year ago,” Markesbery said.
Oros, which relocated to Portland from Cincinnati in 2019, has quickly become one of the most promising companies in Portland’s robust ecosystem of apparel startups. It has raised $10 million in venture capital, leased nearly an entire floor of a building near the east end of the Hawthorne Bridge, landed a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense and started hiring from the area’s deep industry talent pool, including employees who previously worked at Adidas and Columbia Sportswear (Nasdaq: COLM).
Most of all, though, the outdoor apparel company is known for its jackets and outerwear insulated with the same technology used in spacecraft and astronaut suits.
The coolest part, according to Markesbery, about George sporting his brand is the specific jacket he chose to wear. The 39A Flight jacket was limited edition and made in collaboration with Kathy Sullivan, the first woman to ever go into space.
With the NASA logo on the front, Markesbery said he loves that George bought and wore this jacket on his own accord — to him, it means George believes in what Oros was founded on.
“I think the thing that's cool about it is there's someone with the same ethos as Oros that happens to have a very large following wearing our product,” Markesbery said, noting George’s Twitter bio that says “Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.”
Millions on the internet are now seeing Oros’ work, with the NFL, Bleacher Report, ESPN and George himself all posting George wearing the jacket on their Instagrams. Markesbery said as of Tuesday, he had not communicated with George or his team about the exposure or the possibility of future collaborations.
