TED Talks Daily - The creative genius of sneaker design | Salehe Bembury

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Designer Salehe Bembury turns sneakers into stories — like a sunset-colored shoe and footwear with a hiking whistle in the heel. In conversation with TED's Cloe Shasha Brooks, Bembury walks through some of his most coveted drops (for Crocs, New Balance, Versace and more) and breaks down the risk-taking behind his work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to Ted Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. A little while back, industrial designer and artist Salehi Bembury was unemployed, sitting on his couch, eating cereal, scrolling job listings. Not long after, he was on a plane to Milan to design sneakers for Versace. And when he looks back now on how that leap happened, he credits something surprisingly simple. Really what that was more about was the power of asking and what that can bring you. In this conversation with Ted curator Chloe Shasha Brooks,

Salehi walks through, yes, pun intended, the idea is behind some of his most beloved designs. He's collaborated with New Balance, Versace and Crocs, and now runs his own brand, Spunge. But the thread running through all of that is play. It's there in the Easter eggs hidden in his designs in the way he still comes up with designs, like the nine-year-old who once sculpted a sneaker out of clay. And in the working whistle, he put on the back of a hiking shoe just because it felt cool. That was maybe a little bit of my industrial design background, you know, trying to figure out how to find utility within maybe something that doesn't have as much.

But then more importantly, I think it's kind of cool to just do something first in footwear. There's never been a whistle on a shoe. Salehi makes the case that staying playful and protecting your own creativity might be the most serious advantage you have. Whether that means asking for what you want, telling a story with what you make, or refusing to overthink your best stuff. That's coming up right after a short break.

And now our TED Talk of the Day. Salehi, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. So among many of your popular designs, you made Crocs cool. And this is called the Crox Pollux-Clock based on your own fingerprint mold. Elise here, Chloe has just

put a few photos up on the screen of the Crox Pollock's clog she's referring to. Imagine if Crocs had visible grooves that looked like fingerprints all across the shoe, even on the sole. 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? So 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 crock shoe, they let me know that they loved that I was thinking of the form of the crock, which a lot of collaborators in the past were simply re-skinned the crock, maybe adding gibbits, and I was thinking of the form, and that comes from my industrial design background. So 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 crock from scratch,

which I immediately did a birdman hand-hap and said yes. And so this is the result of that. And so initially I had to make sure that I fostered and maintained the existing elements of the crock DNA and made sure that I didn't scare away the existing consumer. And, you know, 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. You know, it's pretty amazing because you've had a really amazing journey as a footwear designer.

You started a pay less in 2009. And then you started doing collaborations with a lot of brands like New Balance, Koh-Han, Versace, to name a few, and now you run your own brand called Sponge. So to help paint the picture of how you forge 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? Yeah, 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 giving 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 multi-billion dollar business, and traditionally that consumer isn't paying attention to fashion brands. They're 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 Raff Simmons, Adidas, Nike Combe de Garcon, and now this massive consumer is aware of the fact that fashion houses can make sneakers. And so I reached out to them. A few days later, Donatella herself responded, said she loved my ideas. She said that she wanted me to come out to Milan

and present to her of 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 whatnot. 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. Yeah. So throughout your goal, 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 just hear you share your design philosophy for each of them. So tell us about these. Up on the screen now are a handful of beautifully colorful sneakers. The soles and the sides of the shoes are all different bright, vivid colors, and the shoelaces, another different color. They look like a cross between trail running shoes and fashion sneakers. 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 skinnings, but this was a white, I guess, the result of a white

piece of paper. And I guess what I was trying to accomplish here was an introduction to the footwear and the four industry and the audience, because before that I was working at different brands. And this was the first time that a piece of footwear is going to feature my name. So there was a lot of things that I had to introduce to my existing audience. How about this one? The image on the screen is of a pastel pink shoe, smooth edges. It looks a bit like a basketball shoe. This is the Hallie One.

It's the first signature sneaker of Tyrese Halliburton. I became a forward 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.

I love these. The image here is of black and white Nike sneakers encased in what looks like cyan blue hard foam that are serving as soles. The foam is cut to be straight lines, jagged cuts, not smooth around the edges like shoe soles usually are. This was a shoe I did with Pierre Moss, which is a high fashion brand.

The creative director reached out to me, and he asked me to create a shoe that represented the feeling of being financially stuck. I knew that I couldn't use concrete, so then I quickly thought of using silicone as the solution, and that's what I made. And that was in a runway show, right? Yes, this was in like a SW-16 runway show, I think, or SS.

How about these? The image here is of a forest green sneaker with dark blue soles that look technical, like a trail runner. There are textural lines across the top of the shoe that look a bit like a topographical map. These are a bunch of images from my Monclair Genius Collaboration. This was my first Ready to Wear collection. And as of late, a lot of my work has been described as world building. And this was that in real form because I got to create a full installation that helped further tell the story of the ready to wear collection and featured footwear accessories.

And there were some pretty big billboards as well, which I hadn't experienced thus far in my career. And when you did this ready-to-wear collection, how did you go from just doing footwear to clothing? Like, how did you think about that? I think one of the most difficult things for an independent designer is creating your signature language. Like, what is your, you know, what is that signature identity that someone can recognize without even seeing a logo? So once I kind of establish that, I think it now makes it easy to bring that across different categories of product. And then this video. The social media video that's being played right now

is of a man wearing pink New Balance sneakers sitting on a child's sled and slowly inching himself forward through sand. The video is full of color with a pink backdrop. It's just so charming. That is Thundercat. That's Stephen. That was for a New Balance project called Sand Be the Time. A lot of the projects are influenced by experiences.

So this was from a trip... Where was that? That was the pink sand dunes in Utah. and that basically was the foundation of the story for that shoe. So the average person looking at that shoe might see a pink shoe, but then with the story of the pink sand dunes and relating the execution of the chenil end to the colors of the sunset, now you've cultivated a community, you've invited people to come into your world, and you've told a story.

You got really into hiking in nature. You started designing outdoor shoes in gear, and one instance you translated Arizona's Antelope Canyon into a shoe called Peace Be the Journey, which came out in 2020. And that shoe, even though it came out six years ago, is still so popular that it's being sold for markup on resale sites like eBay, to this day, consistently for a lot of money. So tell us why you think this shoe is still so popular.

Potentially that I told a story that people could resonate with. This was influenced by a trip to Antelope Canyon, a beautiful place for those that haven't been. and ultimately the goal was to make this shoe represent that experience. So if you're looking at that shoe, it's an orange shoe, but then when I tie the orange to the tones of Antelope Canyon and the blue of the end represents the sky, and the maroons represent the tones in the sunset,

and then the campaign tells that story further. Now when people wear that shoe, sure, it may be a shoe that they think looks cool, but then they now feel like they're a part of a community. I remember when I first started traveling to China for work, I would always look for people wearing Supreme because I assumed that there was a higher likelihood that they spoke English. So sometimes there are visual cues that signify community.

It's so cool. So staying on that New Balance theme, you designed the New Balance 574 yurt shoe with a whistle on the heel. Yes. So most designers would never think of that. So I'm going to share this with all of you so you can see what I'm talking about.

So how did you think of that? So New Balance tasked me with the opportunity of creating a shoe from scratch. Around this time, my buddy Samuel Ross, who's a designer based out of London, he had this Nike shoe called the Zoom Vermero, and it featured a molded plastic piece on the back of the shoe,

and I'd wear them a lot, and people would always ask me, what does that molded piece do? And I would respond nothing at all, and people seem to still accept it. And I found that really fascinating because it was a very unused area of real estate of the shoe. And so I thought to myself,

what if this area of real estate could be used for something functional? Obviously, if that functional thing, was filled with technology. Now you're looking at like a $2,000 shoe, so that wasn't an option. So then I thought of how I could manipulate plastic to function.

That became a whistle. Truthfully, I created the whistle without thinking of the why, the purpose. I just thought a whistle was cool. And then for the prototype, I glued a whistle into a new balance shoe and I met with the team, and I told them a whole story of,

think about camping with your friends, and it's almost dusk, and you stopped to take a picture of some deer, and your friends walk ahead, and now you've lost them. And then I grabbed a shoe from beneath the table, blew the whistle, and then they all slow up. And so, again, that was, you know,

maybe a little bit of my industrial design background, trying to figure out how to find utility within maybe something that doesn't have as much. But then more importantly, I think it's kind of cool to just do something first and footwear. There's never been a whistle on a shoe. And if you were to think about, you know, how much energy would take for you to scream if you broke your ankle on a hike alone,

compared to the amount of energy which would just simply take you to blow a whistle. So, you know, giving the consumer a tool seemed like a good opportunity. You know, one thing I've heard you say before is that genius can be created in seconds and crap can be created over months. I think that's such a great line. That's why you never charge hourly. That is so true. No.

No, anyone who hires consultants. So how does someone else? optimize their life so that they can avoid creating crap over long amounts of time. Maybe avoid distraction. I've always found out that when trying to create not getting too distracted by the thing that we all have in our pockets right now and constantly scrolling other people's ideas, social media, the internet, Instagram, it's a great sense of inspiration, but it can also create a massive cloud of distraction that helps you or makes you lose sight of your own vision. And so I think finding that balance between.

between the work and avoiding distraction is important. Yeah. You know, one thing that you're known for beyond your shoes is, you know, speaking about those Easter egg details in your work, is the boxes that you actually designed for the shoes, the shoe boxes. And so any sneaker head I've spoken to is like, oh, sleigh's boxes. Like, I love collecting his shoes because they stack so beautifully. So, like, how much time do you spend thinking about how the shoe will look on the foot

versus in the box? Well, I just think I often go back to, you know, I'm pretty experienced in footwear design, but I have like my master's in footwear consumerism. So I just think of those moments that resonated with me and that made me feel cool or more athletic or magical. And so I'm really just trying to recreate those moments. I really think it's important to take advantage of every area of real estate of a product

because as creative as all we have is that reveal moment, right? So when we reveal that product, how does it make, the audience feel. Do they like it immediately? Do they not like it immediately? And then they see it over and over again and then they start to like it. I love that relationship with product

because it's almost like Steve Jobsian, if that's the term. Because, you know, he said the consumer doesn't know what they want until you show it to them. So the Crox Pollux being an example, like there are a lot of people that shoe upset at first and then slowly seeing them come around to both that product specifically

or even the brand of Crocs was really cool to witness because you almost were like changing minds with product. So this passion of yours runs deep. You, when you were nine years old, you made this Air Jordan 11 out of clay. And I would love to note, do you still feel like the nine-year-old version of yourself when you do your work today? Absolutely. I mean, if you love what you do, it's not a job. This is pretty much why I've wanted to do my entire life.

So there's a certain level of freedom, there's a certain level of nostalgia that exists within my work. To quote Kanye West, you know, he, in one interview, he was saying that he felt like he was creating most freely when he felt like he was three years old. And that was a time in our lives where we didn't have many boundaries or restrictions. And we just kind of did, you know, our creative output was exactly how we wanted it to be.

And now we potentially have employers or market rules or trends that we need to follow. And then those are all ultimately like guardrail. that prevent true creative freedom. So everything's about balance at the end of the day, but I still try to maintain that freedom as much as possible. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sellehi. Thanks for being here.

That was Salaie-Bembury in conversation with Chloe Shasha Brooks at Play at TED in 26. If you're curious about Ted's curation, visit ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. Ted Talks Daily is a podcast from TED. This episode was fact-checked by the TED research team and produced and edited by our team.

Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Tobner, and Tonzica, Sungmar Nivon. Additional support from Daniela Ballereseo, Christopher Faisi Bogan, Valentina Bohanini, Ban Ban-Bang, Brian Green, and Lainey Lot. Learn more at podcasts.com. I am Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feet. Thanks for listening.