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Transcript excerpt · English
Cloe Shasha Brooks: Salehe, thank you so much for joining us.
Salehe Bembury: Thanks for having me.
CSB: Among many of your popular designs, you made Crocs cool.
And this is called the Crocs Pollex clog,
based on your own fingerprint mold.
And what I love is that Crocs reach out to you
asking if they could send you some shoes.
And you said, "How about we actually collaborate instead?"
And they said yes.
So once they said yes, how did you decide to do this specifically?
SB: It was a great honor because they first wanted to collaborate.
And then when I sent them what I didn’t know was a kid’s Croc shoe,
they let me know that they loved
that I was thinking of the form of the Croc,
which a lot of collaborators in the past were simply reskinning the Croc,
maybe adding jibbitz.
And I was thinking of the form,
and that comes from my industrial-design background.
Once they saw that I was interested in manipulating the form,
they asked me if I wanted to be the first collaborative designer
to create a Croc from scratch,
which I immediately did a Birdman hand rub and said yes.
(Laughter)
And so this is the result of that.
Initially I had to make sure that I fostered and maintained
the existing elements of the Croc DNA
and made sure that I didn't scare away the existing consumer
and getting the honor of working with a brand like Crocs,
you get to work with their heritage and their DNA.
So I had to make sure to maintain that
and then also introduce my own brand identity,
put it through a new lens,
and potentially speak to a new audience.
CSB: You know, it's pretty amazing
because you've had a really amazing journey as a footwear designer.
You started at Payless in 2009,
and then you started doing collaborations with a lot of brands
like New Balance, Cole Haan, Versace, to name a few.
And now you run your own brand called Spunge,
that's what those are.
So to help paint the picture of how you've forged your own path,
I'd love for you to share the story that I just love,
of you being on your couch,
eating cereal in a moment of unemployment
and you somehow went from scrolling on LinkedIn
to convincing Versace to give you your dream job.
Will you tell us that story?
SB: So, cereal on my couch,
that is a description of the image of unemployment
that I was experiencing at that time.
I was using all of the tools that have been given to us for outreach,
LinkedIn, Craigslist,
maybe it was even Facebook at the time,
and sending messages to whoever would accept them.
I reached out to a Versace design director,
and I proposed an opportunity.
I said, the sneaker industry is a multibillion-dollar business,
and traditionally, that consumer isn't paying attention to fashion brands
or traditionally paying attention to the sneaker brands
that we're all used to and probably wearing right now.
But then there was this mass education that happened
that Raf Simons, Adidas, Nike, Comme des Garçons,
and now this massive consumer was aware of the fact
that fashion houses can make sneakers.
And so I reached out to them,
a few days later, Donatella herself responded.
She said she loved my ideas.
Perfect timing for that photo.
She said that she wanted me to come out to Milan
and present to her what I thought the sneaker program could be.
I went out to Milan a few days later,
presented a combination of merchandising and design and sales insight,
and she loved it.
And she was like, "I want to hire you.
I want you to move to Milan right away.
Do you want to consult?"
She was really open about what the opportunity could be.
Because she was so open,
I asked if I could have my own design studio in Los Angeles
and travel to Milan monthly for factory visits and shows
and she said yes.
So I went outside and did my pursuit of happiness --
cry in the streets --
because my life changed instantly.
But really what that was more about was the power of asking
and what that can bring you.
(Applause)
CSB: So throughout your career,
you've always used color and form and function
in a way that's felt really playful.
There's so many nuanced details in your designs,
like there's so many Easter eggs that people could find
if they know what to look for.
So I'm going to show some pictures of your shoes,
and I'd love to hear you share your design philosophy for each of them.
Tell us about these.
SB: So this was my first-ever collaboration
with a Chinese brand called Anta.
This was a from-scratch collaboration.
A lot of collaborations these days are color-ups and skinings,
but this was, I guess the result of a white piece of paper.
And I guess what I was trying to accomplish here
was an introduction to footwear,
the footwear industry and the audience --
because before that I was working at different brands,
and this was the first time that a piece of footwear
was going to feature my name.
So there was a lot of things that I had to introduce to my existing audience.
CSB: How about this one?
SB: This is the HALI 1.
It's the first signature sneaker of Tyrese Haliburton.
I became a footwear designer because of basketball.
That was my kind of initial inspiration that made me feel the emotions
that I believe I'm giving to others now.
It is with Puma.
He recently wore it in the previous NBA finals.
It had a pretty tragic ending,
but it was still amazing to be a part of that shoe
and for it to fall at that part of my career was really special.
CSB: I love these.