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On the subject of colour you raise, unintentionally, two points. The first relates to Thomas the Tank Engine. What would be wrong with gleaning influence there? This market seems overly concerned with only cool nostalgia, and not ubiquitous experience.
I don't think there's anything wrong with referencing Thomas the Tank Engine per se, except that it's so far outside the paradigm of cool that it's possible unwise to admit that I even thought twice about it. Man, I'd be a sitting duck – could you imagine? Forgetting the wisdom of such a move, and the fact that Thomas is a well known trademark, I have no right to appropriate him as nostalgia, as I actually have no memory of him from when I was a kid. When I realised I may have been unintentionally influenced in some way by my son's play things, it was just one of those funny moments where I realised that even I could be influenced by my surroundings surreptitiously. When you have kids you get to re-engage in some great games with them, and my evenings now consist of stories about Spiderman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers. These corporate constructs have so much meaning to a three year old it's unnerving sometimes - how and where do they develop such fixations and brand awareness at such an age? This is pretty powerful stuff. It's deep shit! It's like when you go to Japan and see Winnie the Pooh and Tweety and Daffy Duck all the little fad scenes that they seem to have on permanent rotation, I am sure those colours infiltrate fashion, art, sneakers etc for the time that they have the stores in Harajuku/Omotesando. It's all part of the giant mixing pot that gives birth to trends and somehow initiates those moments where everyone seems to think of something at the same time, like paint brush fonts and inverted college logos.
Second, that Nike comparison. In terms of colour you've hit the nail. But what of silhouette? It seems, often, that many folks can't get beyond the swoosh and see positives in other brands.
Yeah I think you're right. That'd be 30 years of very powerful Nike marketing in full effect. Who does it better than them? Apple? Maybe, they certainly seem to invoke the same sense of devotion and awe from their customers. The kicker with Nike is that they nearly always have the best shit right? So marketing doesn't really explain the whole deal. I wont lie, I love their shoes... they have almost the best in everything and I sometimes wonder how anyone competes with their back catalogue? Saying that, I kids need to open their eyes to the sense of 'cool' being a broader church... and I fully endorse anyone who wants to go their own way. It’s easy to say it used to be cool to be an individual back in my day, but I guess youngsters have always and will always strive to prove their individuality chops by pretty much wearing the same shit as everyone else. And I was guilty as sin when I was a teenager!
I think that it is worth discussing time line. Just how long it takes to get a project like this rolling.
The entire process took well over a year, maybe close to 18 months. We finished the designs in a few days, let them mature for a week or so just to be sure in our own minds and then I forget how long a first sample took, but when it came back, it was pretty off the mark, the colours all needed to be adjusted. I made some notes and we sent the shoe back, crossed our fingers and they did a great job - it was just about perfect second time around. Any changes take about 6-8 weeks I think... so the more you meddle, the longer it takes. 18 months does seem like a long time, but there's always scheduling issues that the brand has to consider, so all in all I think this time frame is about right. I have certainly heard of worse, and the issue is that by the time it does come out, you're kinda over it by then. Lucky for me I'm still like a little kid the night before christmas. I can't wait for the black shoe to come out.
Being in the position you are, do you feel pressure to collaborate on a shoe that will be deemed collectable? Or, do you approach it as making something fresh that you really want to wear?
I'm not really sure how you deliberately design something that can be deemed collectable, but anytime you create a colab type of product with limited production, I guess there is always an element of that which cannot be avoided. As far as numbers go, our shoe was capped at just over 500 units, and I actually requested that we do that many rather than less... If I was just interested in making a collector shoe, I'd have kept that number much smaller and watched the eBay price go nuts! It's simple mathematics. But my feeling is that that's kinda artificial and I'd rather that a reasonable number of kids who dig the magazine can get the shoes if they try hard enough. Each store gets a pretty small allocation so if you’re keen, get to your local PUMA retailer and put your face about. As far as designing products goes, I think the only way you can approach it is to just do something you are personally happy with and try and set the bar a little higher or at least move the goal posts sideways a little. Otherwise, why would you even think of throwing your name all over a shoe?
And, back to shark, there haven't been too many shoes fish scale. I can only think of the Adidas x Oki-Ni Nile carp shoe. Other than being exceptionally cool, what was the inspiration to get that done?
Yeah I remember the Oki-Ni shoes, they were a crazy looking thing. Adidas also did a salmon skin ZX this year, which was really striking as well. Actually now that I think about it, I remember that as we were waiting for our shark samples to turn up, I heard from the guys at Bodega that they might have done something with shark skin but I never heard about it again. I must ask Dan about that, I wonder what happened? The inspiration was just to see what it looked like really, we thought we might get a sample made even if it was just one pair. When it came in and floored us, it just had to happen on a bigger scale and I shall always be thankful for Puma (Mark McGarry and Bob Michalsky especially) that they went all out to help us get that done.
Objectively, which of the brands do you see as doing the best job with heritage product. Nike, Adidas and Puma obviously all use history to their advantage in marketing and in the more casual lines. Lacoste has done a great job, I think. New Balance keeps its models moving. We see a trend. Additionally, how important is it to promote history and heritage and past accomplishment? Are there any downsides, do you think, there?
I don’t know how objective this answer can be, because it’s not a scientific process, it’s totally subjective in every way except sales data. I think everyone is more or less over the ‘retro thing’ in the industry, however it is cheap to produce (compared to developing new models), it seems almost limitless in potential and unlikely to fall over unless we all start wearing super hi-tech boots which can make you fly to work or something... There are new shoes being made all the time and some of them survive, some don’t. The market is very reactive to what kids want and buy, so if we all decided to stop wearing old shoes, I’m sure the brands would switch very quickly to a new paradigm. To answer the other part of your question, I think Lacoste has probably done the best job with the resources they have in some ways - they have a nice mix of retro and new and have still retained the essence of the brand in every thing they do. New Balance is now introducing new models which will give them a nice flip. Nike is Nike. They could stop designing shoes tomorrow and still bring out reissues as often as they need - it's a legacy of 30 years of unlimited design. PUMA could do so much, they have some killer shoes left in the vault and I think Adidas is the sleeping giant, they have so much potential that if things swing their way a little in the market, they could kill it. So that’s a nice way for me to sit on the fence... give everyone a nice compliment.
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