JOR ONE'S GUIDE TO CUSTOM SNEAKERS

 

 

 

I would often spend 40, 60, 80 or more hours painting one shoe, and in the case of my final pair, I worked on them sporadically for almost two years! So the biggest question is – how the hell do you figure out the right price to charge if shoes take that long to create?

Let’s put yourself in a typical scenario. Say you want to be compensated $12 an hour for a custom job. (When you’re 15 that may be plenty, but believe me, $12 an hour doesn’t cut it, especially in NYC.) Now let’s say it takes you 40 hours at $12 per hour – that adds up to $480 of labor and doesn’t even include the cost of the shoe, paint, rent for your studio and the time it takes to get good photos, update your online site, store, blog, MySpace page etc.

So when your school friends want you to do a custom and you quote a price like $480 for labor, most likely they will look at you like you are crazy. Some people may even get literally mad at you for asking what they feel is an unreasonable price. You’ll probably feel guilty and end up caving in and doing the shoe for a much lower price. Potential customers might even justify the price by telling you, ‘Hook me up and then you’ll get tons of customers and make tons of money’. Or better yet, ‘My cousin works at MTV and can get your shoes on Jay-Z. Hook me up first and then you’ll be famous.’

...Yeah right.