JOR ONE'S GUIDE TO CUSTOM SNEAKERS
I got into graffiti in 1993 and racking spray paint and painting all over the city became my top priorities. I would run around all night in San Francisco’s dirtiest crevices painting my name, and ink would get on my hands, clothes, and shoes in the process. Keeping my sneakers looking fresh was impossible at the time, so shoes only served a functional purpose. However, around 2001 sneakers changed the course of my life. A friend who liked my lettering style asked me to write his name on a sneaker and I got some money. Instant dollar signs clouded my vision and somewhat naively, I figured that I could make easy money by painting customs.
Around that time, the sneaker culture hype was just beginning to roll-out and that also swept me a bit further into the scene. I started selling more and more shoes, but I had no idea how to make it all work as a business. Hypebeast and Freshness didn’t even exist yet, and the kids on Niketalk were not supportive of my style because it was so drastically different from Methamphibian and SBTG. I was also going crazy trying to find the right paint – early customers were coming back to me with cracked jobs – there was simply no place to get any info! I was on my own trying to figure out the biz the hard way – through trial and error.
Painting shoes was an all-consuming mix of frustration and breakthroughs. I did figure out what paint to use, how to design a website, how to get press and market myself as well as how to deal with customers and corporations on a business level. I was getting hundreds of emails a week, I was in Time Magazine and I was flown all over the country with the Sneaker Pimps tour. Sometimes I’d get a nice chunk of change, but I was frustrated because I couldn’t translate all those emails into consistent green. There were lots of ups and downs and difficult customers. Eventually I started to dislike painting sneakers because I didn’t feel like I was in control so I made a deal with myself – I would only do what I wanted to do (Or at least I’d only do it for a nice stack of money). I then decided to paint my final pair of customs. I bought the most expensive pair of Christian Dior sneakers I could find and painted everything I ever did on that one pair, kind of like a one-shoe retrospective.
Since then I’ve used my experiences to transition into other creative outlets, designing at Morning Breath Inc and after some classes at F.I.T., I got a job designing casual shoes for a corporate footwear company in NYC. As of today, I’m only working for myself on my own projects and I’m very happy about the creative direction of my work. Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about a few of the challenges customizers face and some potential solutions.
Check out our next feature: D.I.Y McFLY HANDMADE SNEAKERS
