Warrior

HS: How did you approach Warrior? What were the steps to getting where you are now?

Bobby: The Brand Warrior, or Hui Li as it is in China, was originally created under a mandate of the Chinese government. It’s interesting because the company doesn’t have a public face, like say a Nike would. It doesn’t have press reps or anything like that, the way the US might think of it. You might think of the employees having great salaries, great lives, very high luxury lifestyle. But, it’s not really like that. It’s just a job like any other.

HS: What’s your definition of the international fashion market? How did you begin to approach the doors that now carry Warrior?

Bobby: The international fashion market... well, the shoes were originally created by Chinese government mandate to provide Chinese citizens with access to athletics. It was part of an overall push to augment the standard of living across the country. It’s hard to give a comparative example. It’s almost as if the government created the everyday shoe.

What we’re planning on doing for the upcoming season is to release modified color ways and possibly design modifications. They will become more the shoe of Warrior Footwear LLC, and less so a product of Hui Li.

HS: You have five models now. How many does Hui Li produce?

Bobby: They produce many different models. The reason we chose these is that we were intent on showing the unisex brand aesthetic to the people in the west, which is so common. If you look at the Vans website, for example, and try and order something off their store they give you unisex sizing. Same with Chuck Taylor’s, they are not gender specific. We thought, we are trying to become sort of the shoe of the people in a sense, that it is very important to be unisex. We brought some models that were more masculine in cut, and a couple we thought were more feminine. Then we thought we’d market them in a way that educated people that anyone could enjoy them.

HS: I’m also interested in the connection to Chinese rubber companies. Obviously Converse in the United States begins as a large scale rubber company. Dunlop in the UK. There’s always that larger connection to footwear from an industrial point of view. Is there a similar history with Hui Li?

Bobby: That’s a great point. In the early 1930s, Hui Li was a rubber company. They produced very high grade rubber. That is one of the great points of our shoes, they are extremely durable. The best example is the team basketball, its got a thick rubber sole and great side paneling. The rubber is really of the highest quality. The shoes themselves of high quality.