Back in Business

So it has been awhile since I made a post, but finally, we got or paint and are now able to get back into business.

So last weekend we met up and tried to put some work in that we weren't able to before. Some in the pictures shown here, is a pair of shoes that are about half way done. A friend gave these to us and told us just do whatever colorway we want. So we decided to do a midnight colorway and are going to try to sell them at school
                                                                                 

Timbs

Before

 

So along with doing customs, in my Sneaker business, I also am planning to do restorations for people. Here, I did a basic cleaning for my friend John. In order to clean them I, used some suede cleaner with a brush, a suede eraser, and when I was done, I put on a stain repellent. To do this, and come out the way I wanted it to, took me 2 days. After that, I gave back the boots to my friend John and he paid me $10.

After 

Favorite Customs

So as of right now my friends and I are at a standstill and are low on paint.Therefore, we can do any new customs and we haven't bought any because all of use are broke. But, right I'm figuring out everything that we need and the price because my mom might be to let us borrow some money. On the bright side though, we still have our cleaning supplies so we can still do restorations to an extent, because some still require paint. So, hopefully we will get our paint soon so we can do customs such as the picture I posted. Out of the three customs I've personally done, these are my favorite ones. These started off as a pair of all white air force ones. So I started off by putting about 3 or 4 layers of matte black paint around the shoes. I then put metallic gold paint on the swoosh and the around the laces. And, for some detail I put gold splatter on the mid sole and finished off by putting on several coats of paint finisher. What I like about them so much is how good they came out for only my second custom done. Now the only thing I have left to do is dye the insole and they will be perfect.

The Brief History of Customs

For my first post, I decided to talk about the history of customizing sneakers. Also, the picture I posted above is a picture of one of my all time favorite customs on a pair of Air Jordan 11's.

So, from what I have gathered, there is really no documented history on customizing sneakers or from where and how it happened. However, it my belief that this came about through hip hop culture, bear in mind that this is just speculative. So, in the 1970's hip hop was just starting to appear in the ghettos of NYC. And as time progressed, it reached out further and soon spread out across the country. This spread of hip hop was brought on by one of the most iconic names in the genre "RUN-DMC". But it is worth noting that there weren't helping spread a genre, but rather an entire culture.A culture that affected your self expression, your mentality, and even also how you dress. What is interesting about this is that RUN-DMC was notorious for wearing white shell toe Adidas with no laces. This is important because it shows already in this culture of hip hop, that what you wear on your feet should be taken notice of. It also showed that doing something different with how or what you wear was another outlet for self expression. So as hip hop grew, so did this other sub-culture that was obsessed with sneakers and what was on their feet. And as it continued to expand, I feel,so did the cry for individuality, and that is where the job of the sneaker customizer takes place. The ability to alter your shoes to whatever color or design you want by painting it or adding new things to it allowed for this culture to explode to wear it is today, where its members are called "sneakerheads"

This is what I believe is the history of customizing sneakers and also the history of the sneaker culture as whole. But I encourage you to look into hip hop history also, as it is very interesting and is responsible for many aspects of entertainment popular today.