StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Sneakerheads and Sneaker Design

Episode Date: June 20, 2019

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore the world of sneakerheads and the science of sneaker design with legendary designer D’Wayne Edwards, designer/creator Federico Maccapani aka @Mbroidered, and sneaker fashionista Ezra Wine.Photo Credit: StarTalk©. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Hey, StarTalk All-Stars might be off the air, but we have an all-new way for you to enjoy the show. Head over to YouTube.com slash StarTalk All-Stars for free weekly video episodes of the show. You can still listen to all the audio episodes, but we figured you'd like to watch them with your very own eyes. Subscribe to YouTube.com slash StarTalk All-Stars and hit the bell so you can be notified every time a new video gets published. Thanks to our supporters on Patreon for sponsoring this episode of StarTalk. Join them and listen to every episode with no ads. Go to Patreon.com slash StarTalk Radio to learn how. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Today, we test the heat on the street. And for that, we'll be needing sneakers. So slip them on, lace them up, and if it kicks, then kick in. And it's game over. Yes, the superstars of sneakerdom are the designers themselves. Guys like Dwayne Edwards, who designed at least one pair of Air Jordans

and is a legend in the game. He'll be first up on our show. Following in his footsteps is an Italian prince, Federico Maccapani, a.k.a. M. Breuderd, a.k.a. Dr. Frankenstein. Mua-a-a-a. He's not a real prince.

Not royalty. Well, at least we'll find out if he is. All right, Frederico has worked with both Gucci and Adidas, and we'll be getting into the secret science of the sneaker with the both of them. And then wrapping up the show will be fashionista and sneaker guru Ezra Wine. So sit down, get comfy, and try this bad boy on for size. Yes, that's right. We're going to have a fashionable show right now.

That's right. And as we promised, first up, Dwayne Edwards, who is the founder of the Pencil Design Academy and also a prolific award-winning shoe designer himself with just an incredible backstory. We're so excited to have you here. Dwayne, how are you, my friend? Thank you, guys. It's amazing to be on the show and getting a chance to speak with you guys.

Yeah. You are amazingly humble because if I got one word for our listeners, it's Jordan. And you have a major role to play in that. Yeah our listeners, it's Jordan. And you have a major role to play in that. Yes, it's the shoes. And we're going to get there. I want to go back and forward in the same conversation to begin with. Why, what is, and what will the Pencil Footwear Design Academy achieve? Yes. And before you even get to that, why don't you give us a little backstory on how that came about? Because I think it's tied to your backstory inexorably so. Yeah. So why don't you give us that and then tell us about the goals and what you hope to achieve in

the future with it? Sure. So Pencil was, it was a school I wish I was able to attend growing up as a kid. And it's an academy that I wanted to hire from, you know, during my time when I was at Jordan and Nike. And it came from as a kid growing up in Englewood, California. My dream was to be a sneaker designer. dream was to be a sneaker designer. You know, growing up in the early 80s, for a kid from Inglewood to say something like that was kind of crazy, let alone

just even being interested in art in general. But I was born with the gift to draw anything I could see. And I remember vividly getting a 1981 Franco Harris football card. No! Nice!

Yeah, the Steelers. That was the first time where they showed the cleats in the football cards because normally they just cut them off at the knees. Right. And I would draw the cards. When I got to the cleats, it was like a lot harder to draw. And so I just got fixated on footwear. So I just started drawing sneakers on three by five index cards from since I was 12 years old until, well, 2019.

So I've been doing it ever since. But it was it was just that it was just that was the thing that kept my attention. Interesting. So here you are, you're a kid in Englewood. Yeah. You know, basically there's not a, it's not a path for you to be honest. This is not, there's not a path for you. So your founding, your, your founding of the school is actually creating the path that was not there for you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. My, my destiny, unfortunately, growing up in Englewood in the eights was I had a higher probability of being in jail or dead one of those two things unfortunately college wasn't a part of my future right I'm the youngest of six kids raised by a single parent so I never actually got a chance to attend college wow um but uh but but Reebok was on my um thank you all um and a brand that I've been taking it out on for the last 30 years. Yeah, you have.

And so with that in mind, why don't you tell, I read somewhere about you were in the accounting department somewhere. And then that led you to actual shoe design. How does that, how do you make that jump? I mean, I know you couldn't go to college, but what a weird jump to go from accounting to your dream of shoe design. How did that happen? Well, after graduating high school, I ended up getting a temp job. And my second assignment was to file papers in the accounts payable department for a footwear company by the name of L.A. Gear. They were in Marina derby company. And so I hated filing papers,

but I was at a footwear company and they had just started changing over management and they put these small wooden suggestion boxes in every department. And they were hoping that employees will give them ways to save money and new ways to make the company morale better. And so I took those three by five index cards and every day before I went to file papers,

I would just put in my sketch of what I thought LA Gear should design. Wow. And so for six months, I did that every single day before I started my accounting job. And I get a, I hear an announcement over the intercom because again, there's no email, right? So when you want somebody, it's an inter-office message that the whole company hears. Right. And so I get a message to report to the president's office.

What? You're fired, right? I go into his office and he had all 180 of my sketches on his desk and he asked me, you know, are you the person who's been doing this? And he said, you know, what school did you come from? I said, man, I just graduated from Inglewood a few months ago. And he offered me a job right on the spot. Damn.

Right after my 19th birthday. My God. You originated guerrilla marketing. Absolutely. Yes. There you go. Put it on your CV. Put it on your resume.

See, that's the classic guerrilla marketing tactic absolutely which you know nike did perfectly from time to time yeah i mean so okay you're a young man of color in an environment where there's not a lot if any i was If any. I was the only one. Me and a couple janitors. All right. So, and did they design too? No. They didn't. Like, because, you know, that's what happens. It's like, wait a minute. Look at this. This black guy has natural design talent.

Maybe, hey, hey, get over here. Put that mop down. Draw me a sneaker. So, okay. As a teenager, you know you've got something. but what did you think you had that was special? Honestly, you know, I just had a passion for designing sneakers because I was what you would call a sneakerhead before there was a term sneakerhead. So all through high school, my biggest fear still to this day, my biggest fear is to walk into a room and have the same shoes somebody else has on. So I would back back in the 80s when they didn't have multiple color options.

Right. I would go and buy white, white and go to the shoe repair shop and buy color dyes, get some duct tape and an exacto blade and dye all of my shoes different colors just so I can show up to school with something that no one else had. So for me, it was just part of who I was. It was my identity and my personality just to have something different on my feet. And if you did that now, you could actually sell those sneakers for thousands of dollars. Yes. Isn't that ironic? You did it back then just to be different, but if you yourself right now went and deconstructed a shoe and dyed it different colors and

put it back together, that shoe would sell for thousands of dollars. That is so dope. By the way, Dwayne, I know we're fast friends, but could you please do that in a size 12 for me?

Well, you know what? We wear the same size, so I might be able to slide you a few pairs of jeans that I don't wear. Man, it took you 10 minutes. It took you 10 minutes to beg a pair of sneakers. I don't care. Let me tell you something. Shame is not one of my strong suits.

Shameless. That's your middle name right now. So, okay, Dwayne, Let me tell you something. Shame is not one of my strong suits. Shameless. Shameless. That's your middle name right now. Yes, there you go. So, okay. Dwayne, if you're playing with dyes and you're designing, and you know the title of this show is Playing With Science. Yeah, man.

Yeah, you didn't go to college, so you don't have a degree in biology, chemistry, physics, or anything else. Like, I am the same. But you started, all of a sudden, you worked out what you could dye. You worked out how. You're working out the chemistry of that. You're working out how to fix and fast colors. You're working out all sorts of things. So from where you start in your whatever cottage garage industry you started from, from there, where has that journey taken

you in terms of the appliance of science to sneakers? Because there's some serious stuff gone down in between then and now. I think fundamentally I grew up as a problem solver. Even the dyeing of the sneakers was

a challenge because I had to find the right dye. And then I had to scuff up the leather to soak up the dye. And then I had to find the right tape that would stick and wouldn't come off because of the dye. And then trying to understand how long it took for it to dry. So just fundamentally, like just through problem solving, you know, science kind of happens, right? And it's no different even from a from a footwear design perspective i absolutely hated geometry in school

but there's so much geometry in designing shoes it's ridiculous like you can't design shoes without it actually but i didn't know that's what it was I was just doing it to finish the thought and the idea. It was when I started going backwards and reverse engineering the process. Then I started to understand the science behind the creation of sneakers. Okay, so you're responsible for at least one Air Jordan, am I correct? Two. Two of them. Then I worked on three other ones.

All right, so you, not just geometry, you're going to be really up on anatomy. Tendons, muscles, the way, the movement, the dynamics, the biomechanics, everything. And then if you're designing for a particular athlete. Oh yeah, it changes completely. Absolutely. So when I would design for specific guys, if it was for baseball, if it was for boxing, if it was for basketball, for football, I would watch the sport completely different because I'm actually only watching from the kneecap down. It wasn't until I retired I could enjoy a full game of basketball or baseball, look at the whole thing, because I was so fixated on the actual movement that the feet were making. And physically,

the size of these guys, it's almost like you can't really put something over their feet because it doesn't really stick to the foot based on the movement that they actually make. And so just understanding kind of the physiology behind the sheer force that someone who's, you know, take Carmelo Anthony, 6'8", 230 pounds, but when he's moving, that triples. And then he's not only moving at a forward pace, at any moment, he's going left or right at the drop of a dime. at any moment he's going left or right at the drop of a dime so that's additional force that is put upon this structure that you've built to to keep him safe quote unquote right and so because of that you you would have to understand um what materials can withstand certain force you would have to understand the different rubber compounds that could withstand

the abrasion on a wood floor with a certain type of polish on it. There's so much science and math involved in the process. You just actually, you don't look at it through natural learning as if you were in school. Like if you told me to take a science class and a math class and a physiology class in school, traditional school, I would tap out like, I'm good. I don't want to do it. But if you put a sneaker in front of me and said, hey, you know what? This sneaker has all of these things in it.

And you learn through that process, you would learn all day long. Like you would probably pay to be in that class versus, you know, you paying, you know, you learning it and getting paid for it. But yes, a part of understanding the entire physiology of the athlete and what materials, compounds work with the product, but also the surfaces that they play on as well

also has just as much of an impact on how you design and create products. You talking there makes me recall just the recent history of March Madness and Zion Williamson where we'll call it a wardrobe malfunction. Yes, major. Major. It was the

first sneaker blowout. As a designer, A, that hurts you, I'm sure, but what kind of forces are going through him to rip that shoe apart? First of all, I've seen shoes blow out before. Now, technically, when they blow out, what's really happening is shoes are put together, the upper and the bottom are put together by glue.

Glue, right. If glue gets to a certain temperature, it starts to loosen up. Right. And that's how it separates the top and the bottom. It's a really easy trick. You can stick a shoe in the microwave and take the bottom off.

You can take the boot off, right. That's about two minutes in the microwave. So usually that's how shoes blow out. That's normally how it blows out is that the sheer heat and the friction from the bottom of their feet is loosening up the glue, is generating heat, loosening up the glue. And then the bottom usually separates from the upper. This one was completely different.

Right. It tore through. Through. Through a midsole. That's right. If you tried to do that with a saw, it would take you some time to really cut through this thing the way he tore through it. I'm still shocked. The Nike folks are still shocked.

I know the guy who designed it. I know he was sick watching it because that is your worst fear as a designer of watching a shoe blow out. Right. On probably the biggest stage at the moment. Right. On a national stage. However, just to help you guys out, I wish you had me as your PR person because immediately I would have released a press release that says Zion's feet are made of razors. If you want to know what happened, the brother has razor feet.

It's a very rare condition. Ultimately, what happened, Zion is about 285 pounds. He put over 1,000 pounds of pressure at that split second. And that's what helped tore through that whole shoe. Now, what's crazy is no through that whole shoe. Wow. Now, what's crazy is no one knows where the shoes are. The actual shoes that had the blowout? No one knows.

Nike doesn't have them. Duke doesn't have them. No one knows where the actual shoes went. I know who has them. And they're already valued well over $300,000. I'm sure. And I'm sure who has them. Adidas. Adidas has them. That's know who has them. And they're already valued well over $300,000. I'm sure. And I'm sure who has them. Adidas. Adidas has them.

That's who's got them. Because that's who sabotaged them. I'm getting Scully and Mulder on this. I'm going to go X-Files on this one. Exactly. Wait a minute. Send that one more time. $300,000 is what those shoes are worth right now? They're going for right now over $300,000.

Oh my God. That's amazing. If they surface. If they surface. Someone's waiting for it to go to half a mil. Trust me. There's an agent involved and they're waiting

to go to half a mil before they surface. Somebody has them. Some equipment manager, some ball boy, some towel pull. Somebody got them. Somebody has them.

I can't let you go from this show without saying, how do you redesign that shoe for that athlete? Oh, my God. I know. Easy questions first, huh? Yeah, there is a way. So, you know, it's hard to talk through,

but there is a way visually to create a more structurally sound product in this precise area where he blew out his shoes. If you're familiar with sneakers, sneakers have a top and a bottom. I'm good with that. There's a specific Nike technology called Foamposite that allows the side of the midsole to wrap up higher up on the upper. Yep. That would actually would have resolved that issue. That would have never happened if that was in there. So you're going to, it's a wrap around of the sole over the upper, but more so. Right.

So it wraps up sides a bit more. Yeah. So it actually becomes like a reinforcement of that area right there. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. It almost becomes like a, it's like this there. Absolutely. Yeah, super cool. It almost becomes like this.

It's a bit of a cradle. Right. It cradles the foot. Before we thank Dwayne, how many of your students are now placed in design houses for brands and doing what you taught them to do? Wait, let me guess. Let me take a guess. Let me take a guess. I'm going to take a guess.

I'm going to go 90% replacement. So we have over 400, close to 500 kids working professionally in the last nine years. So we are all the top brands. And if it wasn't working, all the brands wouldn't be working with us. That's the way I see it. There you go. We're a part of our results. Yeah. And by the way, what you just described is applied learning in an immersive environment. Absolutely. It is one of the most effective ways of bringing about learning for anyone who is truly interested in something. It is also part of, in Europe, what they have are apprenticeships. Yeah.

On the job training. And so your apprenticeship. On the job training. On the job training. Your apprenticeship allows you to learn exactly what it is you're going to be doing in the environment in which you will be working. And it is highly effective. So, you know, congratulations to you to bringing something that works so well to the shores of America. And I can only hope that there are other institutions such as yourself that will see this and kind of adopt it because it is highly effective. And when you want to talk about creating an economy where people are able to flourish, that is one of the ways that you can do it. So kudos to you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. No, and thank you for the PenSol Academy. It is a fabulous project. Yeah. And can I get in? Can I get in? Can I send you a sketch? No.

Can I send you a sketch, Dwayne? It's going straight in the trash. It's going straight in the trash. Absolutely. Slam dunk it. Hey, Dwayne. Thanks so much, man. Dwayne Edwards, thank you, sir.

Great talking to you. All right, Chuck. Thank you. Thank you. We are going so much, man. Thank you, sir. Great talking to you. All right, Chuck. Thank you. We are going to take a break. All right, let's take a break. Let's do that break. When we come back, Federico Macapane. Yes.

At Embroidered. We'll be with us live in the studio. Do not go away. One of our most popular segments on StarTalk is Cosmic Queries. You ask the questions, and Neil and our science experts answer them. How do you submit a query? Follow StarTalk on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and look out for calls for queries based around a specific topic.

We post a call for questions every time we need them for a new episode. topic. We post a call for questions every time we need them for a new episode. You can also submit a question at any time at startalkradio.net slash queries. If you want a better chance of getting your question asked, you can support StarTalk on Patreon. We prioritize questions from our patrons. Thanks for being the best and most curious fans in the universe. for being the best and most curious fans in the universe. Welcome back to Playing With Science. What a fabulous conversation with Dwayne Edwards. And we're about to have another fabulous conversation.

And he's here with us in the studio. In the studio. Federico Macapagni. You may know him better as Embroidered. He has been described as a Dr.enstein of sneaker design now i don't know if he's happy with that but we're going to find out federico welcome to play with science thank you so much and thank you for having me appreciate it absolutely it comes from our side so your inspiration comes from where well from a lot of different things in life, but I guess I look a lot at nature as the highest form of inspiration for me. Because, you know, everything in nature is the way it is because of a series of evolution that led us to this moment of time.

the best thing, the most functional, you know, animals and plants where you can only survive only if, you know, you are the apex of, you know, your category. And so there is a lot of beautiful things from, you know, colors, forms, shapes, you know, it's really amazing. I think it's fabulous you see it like that because we've only ever thought of sneaker footwear as function I run I jump I throw or whatever I kick and what color do you want and it doesn't seem to go beyond that but you've elevated that whole thing

by bringing a totally fresh concept to it like I said said, the Dr. Frankenstein thing. The way I work is we have to solve problems and that starts at the beginning, you know? Look at that. Yeah, actually there is a lot of science involved in, you know, sneaker design. Absolutely. And you're a big friend of Dwayne Edwards. Yeah.

And it's funny. We just had him on and he said the exact same thing you just said. Yeah, it's like you had a conference call. It's like you guys were talking before. You know, so I'm interested, you know, I'm looking at your, so I look at your Instagram. And your Instagram is pretty dope, man. You have so much cool stuff on there, like a design.

And they're all your designs, right? I mean, no, I mean. Or are these just the things that you like? Is that? Those are all my shoes. Okay, those are all your shoes. Okay, that's what I thought. I love shoes.

I collect shoes. I wear shoes. You know, so that's what really... My Instagram is the representation of what goes through my head. Right. So here's what I want to ask you, because as I look at all these different shapes and constructions and the composites that are used.

Talk about form following function. How does it work? Are you working with engineers at the company? And then they tell you like, okay, here's what this shoe is going to do. I mean, in all design, it always comes down to you have a vision, but then you're limited by the real world application of whatever it is that you're designing. So how does that work when it comes to your shoe design? Well, you know, we have a lot of different teams where we have sports science, we have marketing, we have development, we have design. So all these teams work together to create a product.

It's not definitely one man job. You know, nothing would happen if it was just for designers or just for developers. It's truly the collaboration between all these things. And you know, actually, you know, when you work and create shoes, especially for athletes, you start from the insides, how they play, why they do certain movements, looking at their biomechanical movements and understanding the force that they put into the shoes, the directions. So there is a lot of data involved in design, especially nowadays we have a lot of way to capturing data. And there's never

been like that up until now. So the way I approach it is I take this data as my ingredients and I need to use them in order to bake the cake. Right, gotcha. So all this data becomes your little cake batter. Kind of, yeah. Right. So what is the last part? Is it aesthetics? Or do you ever start with like, man, this is going to be the coolest looking shoe ever, and then try to reverse?

Well, you know, before I was working in this industry, I was approaching things and I like them. I like the way they look. But when you start working at a professional level, you start to understand that the first thing that matters the most is the function. They need to perform, and they need to make the athlete better.

Yeah. If you're making a shoe that doesn't make the athlete better compared to the one before, it didn't work out right. So it's truly form following function. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. But again, I love

also beautiful products and for me, it really needs to be a balance between making them work perfectly but also making them look beautiful. Because at the end, especially kids now with social media, we are bombarded by visual information

constantly. And when they're scrolling on the explore page, you have like three seconds to get their attention, to click the photo, open it up, and they are understanding if they want to try it on or not in those three seconds. And that is based on look, let's say, because that really is what gets your attention.

If then that look is amazing, then you want to try them on, and if you get them. If then, you know, that look is amazing, then you want to try them on. And if you get them for the feel, you won. Gotcha. So go back to say, you know, there's a lot of science involved in sneaker design and construction. What science are you embracing right now? And what science could we possibly see in the future?

Technology evolves every day. Like three years ago, what we do today wouldn't be possible. You know, like there is so much about computational design and that it's really influencing the way we design sneakers. Before there were a lot of like sketching, but now it's kind of we have this data, we have this machine that can generate the design based on the data

that we implement so it's all based on algorithm that is truly like math super mathematical you know and i believe the future for designers will be kind of like selecting which design the machine provides you because we as human we have feelings the machine don't have. You know, machine can do everything perfect. Are we talking AI design footwear? Kind of. Kind of, yeah. I mean, it's not true AI,

but in a way it is. Because the algorithm is kind of making the selection in terms of what will be the output. Machine learning algorithms. Yeah. But what I love what you're saying, though, and maybe one day this will not be the case. Maybe one day machines won't have emotions, but what they'll be able to do is accurately depict what emotions are elicited by looking at something.

But what I like about what you said right here is that what you have to do now is have the eye of design in order to look at that and say, no, this is truly aesthetically something that we would want to make as opposed to this, which actually lives up to the functionality. But, you know, it's an ugly piece of crap so take that computer no i'm joking right right no yeah for sure uh you know like it's truly the collaboration between men and machines right without without a collaboration they would be just humans and machines doing their own things but it's when these two words collide that's where really the magic happens. Let's focus on the

Predator-Harden hybrid that you came out with. The Predator is a soccer boot, a football boot, a cleat, whichever way you perform. And the Harden is a basketball shoe. Now, this is the Frankenstein part of design for you.

I know the soccer shoe because it's a Predator. And that Predator is built with rubberized paneling that enables more traction on the ball. When you kick it. Yeah, so I'm bending it like Beckham. This swerve. Yes, this swerve.

And then the harder thing... Puts more spin on the ball to create a more dramatic Magnus effect. There you go. There's our science. So... What on earth drew you? create a more dramatic madness effect. There you go. There's our science. So what on earth drew you to produce something like that? Dude, it's, and by the way,

It's cool. if you take a second, just look up Hardened Predator. It is now, and I'm going to tell you this, Federico, and I'm not blowing smoke, okay? I'm not a sneakerhead, okay? As a matter of fact, you'm wearing i'm wearing chucks because that's my name and uh that's about as deep in the game as i'm gonna get these things are so cool looking that when i saw them i was like oh my like i

actually had that sneakerhead reaction like oh my god they look they look kind of crazy you know the it all started that I love the president franchise I love the colors black red and white you know they are iconic for Adidas football yes the thing is I couldn't wear cleats on the street so let me ask you about this design though because I mean we know that you took it from the side is there is there any racing inspired because it looks like it's moving when it's sitting still. Oh, wait, do you have it? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, he's going into his bag right now. He's going to take the shoe out. That's pretty awesome. And also, this is a custom, so this shoe doesn't really exist. The shoe you're about to show us doesn't really exist? Yeah, you know, it doesn't exist.

It's not an official shoe. Exclusive! You're messing with Chuck's mind. We got an exclusive! Don't show him something that doesn't exist. You'll blow his head away. Oh, my God. Look at this thing.

This thing is so cool, man. And I am not a person who gets excited about sneakers. But when you look at that, look at that. It's beautiful. It looks like sports and sex at the same time. You are Italian. Yo, man, this is amazing. Thank you.

Give it back. Otherwise, you'll take it to dinner. And you know what? There's a certain asymmetry that actually adds to not only aesthetic, but also makes it look like it's in motion. I mean, you're really a fan. I mean, this is iconic as a design, as a Predator design,

as the boot. I mean, I grew up with Adidas and I mean, I've worn them. I've been sponsored by them. All sorts of things. The knot in the laces

is a soccer player's guaranteed excuse. Really? Yeah, because, oh, it must have hit the knot. Oh,

hit the knot. Right? So that's why it's in the stand. Wow. So now, function and form. This is here. The Velcro is there to keep it there. This now gives a more uniform surface over the instep of the foot.

Right. And therefore, you've got a plain surface. Now, it's not the knot. There you go. It's not the knot. You've just taken away a soccer player's excuse. So cool, man. Mythbusting. Mythbusting.

Mythbusting. This is so cool. And this shoe is from 2000. Yeah. I took actually a vintage pair that I actually found on eBay. What I'm laughing about is 2000 is now vintage. Yeah. Well, yeah.

How old am I? When you get two words that have nothing to do with each other collide, you create really something that is super interesting do with each other collide, you create really something that is super interesting that before you wouldn't have even thought. So you know, like three or four years ago, I started putting my ideas out on Instagram because I was putting them out with an hashtag that was hashtag what if. Because I was a fan back then of just sneakers and kind of I wanted to see what wasn't available and because I knew how to use Photoshop and Illustrator I said okay I'm just gonna do it

and put my ideas out and eventually these ideas reached blogs, website, designers and then eventually led me to where I am today. Favorite sneakers right now? Right now? Right here, right now. There has to be Adidas, right? Of course. Yes. Thank you. Favorite new sneaker or favorite sneaker ever?

Ever. Ever. Let me go teenage on this. Ever. Right now, it has to be the Adidas Carbon 4D, which is the one that has been designed with the 3D printed technology that has been made in partnership with Carbon, which is a company based in California. All right. And it's a tech company, actually.

And, you know, the beauty of this is that the collaboration that comes from two worlds that completely have nothing to do with each other. completely have nothing to do with each other. And, you know, when the shoe came out, it really inspired me a lot because, you know, one day, potentially, we can have shoes that are custom-made for everybody. You walk into a store, you scan your feet, and, you know... And then they'll print out for you right there on the spot.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that'd be it. So the Carbon 4D is just a tremendous looking shoe. And so what part of this is printed or is the entire shoe printed? In this case, the sole is printed. It's the sole that's printed. The midsole. The midsole.

Okay, I got you. That makes sense. All right, cool. Go ahead. My favorite shoe? Historic. Yeah. Historic, I would say really the Predator Accelerator,

which is the model before the one I show you. It's so beautiful for me. And, you know, I don't know. It has everything. You see, shoes got to touch the soul. I know you're Italian, and it's a different… But for me, I go back to the original the 70s it's the

royal blue white stripes adidas gazelle yeah classic but with the sole is very different

because it's got that sort of hexagonal pattern but it's very spongy this is before all of the energy capsules and energy returns

it was die cut form back then yeah and for me it would be the Christian Louboutin Classic Peak Toe. Yeah. Absolutely. Yes.

In a six-inch heel. Size 12. No, no. You just ruined it. You just, no. No. Look, Federico, what a pleasure. Federico, what a pleasure Federico

what a pleasure to have you man thank you so much we must come and visit you at the lab over in Brooklyn and record some footage that'd be cool

in the studio with us Federico Macapani at Embroidered that's right aka Dr. Frankenstein grazie amico thank you so much grazie grazie

thank you so much right we're, grazie, grazie. Thank you so much. Right, we're going to take that break. When we come back, fashionista, sneaker guru, and a great interview. Ezra Wine will be with us. That break now. Ezra on the other side.

So, Chuck, fashion designer and archivist Ezra Wine. Now we have to know what it really means on the street. So there's only one person to go to. Yeah. This is our guy. Ezra Wine, welcome to Primer Science, sir. What's up? Good to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, without a doubt, man.

So you're in the fashion world uh originally from taking the stuff that you loved yes and kind of remixing like you're you're like the puffy of fashion before there was any any remixing you were remixing fashion yes i definitely feel that way um glad you said it that way i i daapper Dan has always been like a big influence of mine growing up. Just seeing what he was creating, kind of taking luxury labels, whether he was cutting and sewing old fabric and remaking these Louis Vuitton Gucci pieces. And he was so influential at the time. Yeah, so I feel like that was always a big influence on me. If you can just give us a brief history lesson of why we're at the place we are right now with regard sneakers and what has been the journey? Yeah, it's a very complicated journey, a journey that I love to think about and talk to my friends about. I think it's about art. I think it's about supply and demand. I think it's about cultures forming. I think it's about, and again, back to the art side of it, I think it's about these products that were created that certain individuals like Michael Jordan wore and kind of popularized. And then it's about how people wanted this art and people sought after these pieces. There was a status symbol. There was risk involved with like, you know, people

getting robbed for their sneakers and all of these things. While the majority of the country might have thought of this as like, oh, don't buy those for your kids. Like, that's only going to be trouble. There's always this percentage of people in America that like, think this is controversial. This is exciting. I got to have it. Got to have it. This is like in the news.

This is in the crime part of the newspaper. And it's in the fashion part of the paper. And it's in the sports section. So is it true? That's funny. Is it true two you guys can bear this out i heard i read this on the other side of the atlantic years and years ago that nike would judge the success of their new release on the number of times a sports store would get a smash and grab i I could see that being the case. Definitely in the 80s. Yeah.

If, you know, sometimes that's how popularity is determined. That was their, before we've had all of this data acquisition, that was their way to understand whether this shoe was going to work or whether or not they got to move on and design something else. And yeah, I mean, I think the other big part of the story is, and not to jump ahead to like the whole Jordan 1 story, but, you know, it's a shoe at a time when the league is, it's a diverse league in 1984 when Jordan enters,

you know, black players, white players, but dress code wise, everybody's wearing white sneakers. And it's when nike made this black and red sneaker peter moore who i believe is the original designer for the jordan one um when they created this this was this was like a shock to the world it's like black and red this is the devil's colors this is this is like this is this is a gang look and uh and and these were all the things that were said. And then the fines came in.

And, you know, the NBA said, well, this goes against our dress code policy. But you were involved in this story. Once the fines come in, were you not, you then brought your own take to this whole thing? Yeah, I mean, perfectly honest. My own experience is a number of years later you know i wasn't uh you know make i was not making clothes in 1984 i will admit that but so

for me it was more of a uh 10 years later when i when all these books start coming out on jordan and books on sneakers and kind of telling the story and And one of the most exciting stories that I was learning about at the time was the story that this went against the league policy and the NBA said, you know, it's $300 a game. Like you can't wear these and we're fining you. And then it goes up to, over the course of the season, it turns into a $5,000 fine per game. So every time Michael Jordan steps onto the court,

the NBA is saying, we are now, we're going to censor you $5,000 because we told you you can't wear those sneakers. Now they're damn sure not going to tell him he can't play because he's the most exciting player in the league. So they can't say that. Plus the NBA, like the commissioner doesn't have the power to actually sit a player. Only a coach and a GM can do that. Right.

So they're like, all right, what do we do? So who's paying the fine? What can we do? We got to pay. You got to pay $5,000. So is Michael putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out 5K every game or did someone intervene? The story is that Nike paid all the fines. That this was all marketing hype.

How many shoes were they selling? How many games in a season? 180? No, 82 games in an NBA season. All right, that's baseball. Baseball, yeah. 80 games, right? 5,000 to go. 8 times 5 is 40.

That's not bad. Not if you're Nike. Yeah, exactly. Actually, that's kind of smart. But this is also 1984. It's like Michael Jordan's not bad. Not if you're Nike. Yeah, exactly. Actually, that's kind of smart. But this is also 1984. It's like Michael Jordan's a rookie. He's not guaranteed to be this world icon. It's a big gamble.

And in the movie Just for Kicks, the documentary film Just for Kicks that I love to watch, they also talk about this a lot where Nike, this was like a roll of the dice for Nike because they had some money, they signed Jordan, but they weren't this like, according to the film, at least, they're saying in 1984 and 1985 that Nike is not this like powerhouse. And this was kind of like a roll of the dice where it's like,

if it works, they become, you know, cultural icons. The thing about the big sports brands, because I've done some of this myself in the UK for Adidas and a little bit with Nike, talent identification of the young players. And we will sit down and go through a list of talent. And we will then be asked. When I was at Adidas, I was asked, will this player not just become a top domestic player? Will he go on to be a top-ranking international player? And we had to

call it. And I'm looking at people saying, he's 14. Because of my background, that's function. This shoe, this boot, whatever it is I've got on my feet has to have a functionality. If it doesn't give me that, it's out the window. And I don't care which floor I'm on, they're going out the window. So then you talk about it being a work of art and I'm looking at it and thinking, you know what? There is a part of that. You think, oh man, I look good in these.

That's a function. Yeah. That's a function to a lot of people. But that's on a mental level. This is taking the design of a shoe off of the physicality and popping it straight into your head. The function is to not have somebody walk up to you and go, what are those?

Right. That's the function. So how do these shoes become so valuable? So you said on the resale market, is are the are the sneaker companies aware that these shoes now are sought after and they stop production because i would think like if they're if they keep making them they can't continue to be valuable i just wait for them to make some more i'll go get them the only way they can be valuable is if there's scarcity yes so how do they create that scarcity yeah i think there's, I mean,

it's definitely difficult to figure out what is going on in the Nike strategy world, but I think that they are just chasing lots of money and from different like groups of people. And I think the general idea is, I mean, the weird thing is right now, there's like a sneaker probably that came out just today, if not like more than one, just from Nike, where like growing up in the 80s, it was like, oh, the Jordans are coming out once a year. You know, like everybody's waiting for that one, you know, February day when like there's actually like a new shoe on the shelf.

Now it's like sneaker releases every day. But I think there's also a case of, and I'm glad you mentioned scarcity. It's like there's definitely a case of these are, this is you mentioned scarcity. It's like there's definitely a case of this is a cool design. It's a special colorway. Let's put a cool name behind it. And we're only making 200 pairs, even though we know that 40,000 people want these. And this becomes like something super special. Dude, so you said, I bet you there's a Nike sneaker that was released today, right?

So I just went to the site and I just put in, Nike sneaker released today. All right, here it is. Jordan 1 Retro High Travis Scott. $880. Oh my God. Is that per shoe or per pair? Like it makes a difference to me. Per shoe or per pair. So that's what they put out today. Yeah. Like it makes a difference to me. Pursue or prepare.

So that's what they put out today. So this is basically a re-release because I've seen the sneaker before. This is a classic Jordan back in the day look. Right. But I guess they're re-releasing this on a limited basis so that the people will pay $880 for these sneakers. That's just genius. No.

Daylight robbery. There goes my Nike endorsement. I mean, I think the other thing that's happening here is that it's like Nike will, they're creating this want where like everybody wants that shoe. It's this, you know, Travis Scott's behind it and there's a limited number of them

and there's this crazy, you know, if you can get them at retail for two or 300 and you know that you can sell them for 800, this is like, this is a job for people, you know, to be able to make $500 a day, like reselling. But I think what Nike is also doing right now is if you go to any Foot Locker, Foot Action, Nike store nearby, there's also tons of other Jordans that are not $800, that are $100, $200, that did not sell out day one. And so there's this sort of wave of like, oh, if you want something that looks like it, it's always available.

Like, come on in. We have your Jordan 1. We have your Jordan 3s. But like, oh, you want this brown suede mocha one from Travis Scott where we made it a very fancy box those you have to like really work for or sleep in front of our store or spend 800 so you know they seem to be chasing money from multiple lanes let me ask you this question because you may know the answer um the shoes michael jordan would have worn on court right

are they the ones, I'm not dropping $800 on a pair of sneakers. I'm not sure. I'm not paying $800 for Michael Jordan's actual sneakers. Would I be opening a Nike box and pulling out exactly the same shoe as Michael Jordan would have been wearing? Or am I getting something that looks like,

but isn't the same as? I'm going to say it is the exact same product that is what nike says and um now with that said the only asterisk to the story is that there are these items called pe player exclusives and that's if you ever go to flight club or any of these resale stores you will see like you know ray allen when he played for the celtics was like sort of gifted from nike some like you know jordan doesn't usually for the celtics was like sort of gifted from nike some like you know jordan doesn't usually make like a green jordan so like they would make like him a green celtic sneaker and then like somehow maybe he gives them to a friend or a charity like

something happens they wind up a flight club and now those are like the two thousand dollar sneaker um and and i hear that those can be a little different. Sometimes they'll like, yeah, they'll like handwrite numbers inside. But I've been told that it's the same. They make cappuccino. Yeah. Yeah, they're like. That's the Clooney. So we're about out of time, but you have, what is the shirt that you have here?

So this is a t-shirt that I designed in Photoshop many years ago. Basically after loving the Air Jordan sneaker for many years, definitely wanted to pay homage to Jordan and kind of tell the story that we were talking about earlier. As the text of the t-shirt reads, it's a Air Jordan number one, black and red uh print and then the text and this is from like a poster of like a page of a book and it basically says five thousand dollar fine per game and this

is all related to the story that we were telling earlier which is that in 84 when jordan came into the league uh he was getting fined so basically the the card that i that we wrote up has a little story has a little story so it. Has a little story. So I'll read it. In 1984, the National Basketball Association banned the Nike Air Jordan sneaker and fined rookie star Michael Jordan for wearing his signature sneakers. The league claimed the shoes went against dress code policy, stating the shoes did not have enough white in their design. At the beginning of the season, the fine was $300. By the end of the season, it was 300 by the end of the season it was

five thousand dollars fine per game nike paid every fine this is all in the book uh in in one of those air jordan books talking about the history of the shoe and uh and the story's been going on and on you can check it out and bobby does where'd you get those book and and i mean now there's tons of sneaker media. That's so funny. 1984 and the NBA is just like, the league is going black. We can't let the shoes do the same. Can you imagine?

We need more white knee shoes and on the courts, damn it. Oh, Boston, where are you when we need you? Exactly. You think the NBA is sitting there thinking, why didn't we find him more? Hey, Ezra Wine. Thank you, sir.

Thank you guys for having me. Great talking to you. This was fun. Yeah, a lot of fun. This has been Playing With Science. We look forward to your company very, very soon. Psst.

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