The sneaker guru weighs in on artistry, brand history and the significance of the Jordan 3.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to enter the design field today?
“A lot of young people are interested in shoe design. I receive sketches in the mail every day and I’m not really supposed to look at them. What I think is important for people to understand is that, if you want to be a good shoe designer, you have to be able to design a car or a building or furniture. Expand your mind beyond shoes and then, when you get back around to doing a good shoe that performs well for an athlete, that’s also beautiful or interesting, you have more richness and depth to work from because you’ve learned other things. There are more schools now that are thinking along the lines of including shoe design in their industrial design programs. If I was teaching right now, that would be one of the biggest subjects. You’re in a shoe design class, but the first thing you’re going to design is a chair. Let’s learn about solving problems on a wider spectrum.