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Pragmatic Obots Unite

Pragmatic Obots Unite

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Tuesday Open Thread: African American Athletic Shoe Designers

January 6, 2015 by Miranda 176 Comments

Good Morning POU!

Today we feature the founder of the only shoe design school in the United States, D’Wayne Edwards.

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PENSOLE Footwear Design Academy creator D’Wayne Edwards sketched his first shoe at 11. A few years later, his high school guidance counselor told him no black kid from Inglewood, Calif., had a shot at designing footwear. “In the 80s, in that area, my destiny was jail or death,” Edwards says now. His best bet, the guidance counselor said, was to work at McDonald’s, or join the military.

Raised by a single mother and with no college degree, Edwards, 45, is one of only eight people to ever design an Air Jordans, working as the lead Jordan designer for 11 years.  Worried his name and product meshed together too easily and leery of contributing to product obsession, Edwards started down a new path when he walked away from Nike in 2011: Train the next generation. He sees shoes made to represent mostly African-American superstars and marketed mostly to young African-American athletes. Sneakers are a $50 billion annual industry that’s predominantly controlled by white designers. When he asked Nike what the multi-billion dollar brand planned to do to increase diversity in the design ranks, they told him they didn’t have a plan. He started PENSOLE in 2010 with hopes to open sneaker design to all cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.

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“We’re always telling these kids that they can run, jump and dunk like these athletes,” Edwards says. “But what about changing the conversation to say they can actually design the product they’re purchasing?”

‘The original root of the problem is the position of shoe designer is not looked at as a job,” said Edwards. “Parents don’t really look at it as a viable source of income for their children, so it isn’t something that is encouraged.”

Edwards own story is proof that something like this is possible. Growing up, there weren’t any design schools that specialized in shoes, and his teachers didn’t help, even telling him to join the military in order to look for better opportunities. After getting a job as a file clerk for the shoe company L.A. Gear, he kept showing his own shoe designs until finally, at the tender age of 19, he got a job as the youngest shoe designer in the industry.

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Before the Pensole Academy, most footwear designers came from similar professional backgrounds, like architecture or engineering. Now the school is helping to create an alternative path for creative students that want to break into the industry.

Pensole Academy is now partnering with some of the historically black colleges in the nation, as well as Portland State University, to make that vision become a reality.

“The more we make ourselves visible to the population, the more aware the black population will be that this is an option,” says Edwards.

Filed Under: African Americans, Fashion, Open Thread Tagged With: African American Athletic Shoe Designers, D'Wayne Edwards, Nike, Pensole Footwear Design Academy

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