sports merch – DannijoPro blends NBA-licensed design with handcrafted details and community-led growth, launching on Revolve after rapid year-over-year expansion.
Danielle Snyder Shorenstein didn’t start out chasing sports fans—she started chasing a feeling, and then built a business around it.
It began after she moved to San Francisco and attended a Golden State Warriors game with her husband.. Not a lifelong Bay Area sports devotee, Shorenstein looked at the typical merch on sale and felt a mismatch.. She’d spent years in fashion and jewelry through Dannijo (founded in 2008). so the question came naturally: why couldn’t sportswear look like something you’d actually want to wear beyond the arena?
Over the course of the season, she went back to the games and treated them like a runway.. She cut up a jersey. added a crochet collar. and worked in crystal details—then wore the finished piece to the arena.. The reaction was immediate and personal.. Other women approached her again and again with the same question: where did she get it?. By the time players’ partners were messaging her. the demand wasn’t theoretical—it was sitting right there in the stadium.
That early spark became the blueprint for DannijoPro, a fanwear brand Shorenstein built with her sister, Jodie Snyder Morel.. The ambition was bigger than “make it pretty.” It required learning an industry where fashion logic doesn’t always map neatly onto sports licensing. distribution. and approvals.. Sports merch is often treated like a mass-produced add-on—logo, colorway, done.. DannijoPro’s wager is different: design should be the product, and craftsmanship should be the differentiator.
Today. nearly two years into the project. DannijoPro sells a range of fan gear that’s intentionally built for everyday wear.. The lineup includes understated button-downs with tiny offset team embroidery. as well as bespoke vintage pieces with hand-sewn touches. crocheted collars. and rhinestone accents.. The brand has also introduced “1/won. ” a line that takes vintage fan gear and transforms it into higher-priced. one-off style statements.. Prices run roughly from $85 to $495, sold through the company website, brand-run pop ups, and events.
The company’s momentum has been unusually fast.. DannijoPro is growing 120% year over year. with 40% of sales coming from DMs on social media—an organic distribution channel that mirrors how fandom itself behaves online.. Growth hasn’t relied on classic retail expansion alone; it has been driven by word of mouth. including high-profile wearers such as Brooke Shields. Ayesha and Stephen Curry. Selena Gomez. and Benny Blanco.. DannijoPro has also secured a licensing agreement with the NBA. a move that gives the brand permission to operate at a scale and credibility level that many niche merch designers struggle to reach.
Behind the scenes, Shorenstein and Morel frame licensing as both opportunity and complexity.. There isn’t one standard playbook in sports. they say—each league and team operates differently. and distribution can become layered and nuanced.. Relationships matter, but so does entrepreneurial creativity.. In their view. the real opening is the female consumer in fandom—someone who often gets overlooked by the traditional model of “pink it and shrink it.” DannijoPro is aiming for the opposite: build from the ground up. then cultivate community rather than simply place inventory.
That focus comes through in how the business is structured into three distinct buckets.. First. there are NBA-licensed pieces under the DannijoPro umbrella. designed with the brand’s signature details and available across the league rather than limited to a single team.. Second is the Atelier concept—sometimes described as “blanks”—where customers buy a Dannijo base piece and personalize it with in-house artists.. Third is “1/won” vintage: sourced through long-time dealers in California and Florida. then reworked by hand through cutting. stitching. and hand painting.. Shorenstein calls the approach a resistance to fast fashion and the sameness that’s increasingly visible in everything from online storefronts to automated style output.
For consumers, the impact is practical as well as emotional.. If you’ve ever watched someone show up to games dressed like they just stepped out of a fashion magazine. you understand the appeal: fandom without the costume feeling.. DannijoPro is pitching exactly that—pieces you can keep, repeat, and wear beyond the stadium.. Morel describes a refusal to treat sportswear like something that belongs only on plastic hangers inside an arena store.. Instead, the stadium bathroom becomes part of the brand experience, turning casual moments into discovery, and discovery into an invitation.
Analytically. the story also fits a broader shift at the intersection of business and culture: brands are increasingly borrowing from established identity—legacy IP. recognizable leagues. familiar logos—and remixing them with a point of view.. DannijoPro isn’t the only example of this “adjacency” strategy. where creators and retailers partner with major brands or work with recognizable names to reduce the risk of building awareness from zero.. But DannijoPro’s differentiation is that it doesn’t just repackage existing visuals; it leans heavily into design language. craftsmanship. and personal customization.
Licensing can be a powerful structure when executed well because it aligns incentives.. For the IP owner, it can expand reach without the same operational burden.. For the licensee. it provides a ready-made audience and a higher credibility baseline than purely original designs that must prove relevance without the weight of an established franchise.. The challenge is maintaining approvals and ongoing relationships—work that Morel and Shorenstein emphasize they manage through constant communication with the league.
That matters as DannijoPro prepares for its next distribution step: a launch on online fashion retailer Revolve at the end of April.. Executives at Revolve have pointed to shifts in where customers are spending time. including an increase in attending sporting events. and a desire for products that feel aligned with a fashion-first audience.. For DannijoPro. the bet is that there is “white space” for sportswear that crosses into everyday life—pieces defined by silhouette and detail rather than just team allegiance.
Shorenstein sums up the underlying philosophy simply: the NBA is their window to the world. but customers are buying joy and community as much as they’re buying clothes.. The brand’s next phase—bringing its fashion house aesthetic beyond the NBA—depends on whether that emotional connection can scale. and whether more leagues will see the same opportunity to partner with creators who treat merch as design. not decoration.
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