Inside the Lair of the Custom Sneaker King

To call me a cobbler is not an insult at all,

it's just incorrect.

It's a totally different art form or craft.

Cobblers are the people that repair your shoes.

They don't actually make them from scratch.

So the people that make them from scratch,

you can always use a fancy word besides shoemaker,

you can call them a cordwainer.

I started making custom shoes when I was about 16 years old.

I started, like, painting Nike dunks and whatnot,

wasn't a very good painter, so I moved on from that.

I started playing with, like, fabric

which led me to the reconstruction,

and then as I got better and better at that,

it just kind of naturally progressed

into making my own shoes totally from scratch.

Yeah, like, all kinds of leathers.

It depends on what the client wants.

You know, some people want exotics,

like alligator, or python,

or sharkskin or something like that.

Other people are more understated.

They just want, like, a nice specialist tanned leather,

a goatskin or something like that.

I use all kinds of stuff.

It depends what the client wants.

I like sharkskin, I think it has such a cool texture to it.

And you never see it.

My prices start at $1,000 and go up from there

depending on the complexity of design

and the materials used.

It takes at least, like, 12 hours

to do one pair from scratch,

but that can go up quite a bit of hours very quickly

just depending on the details of the design

or the materials you're working with.

There's a lot of variables.

You know you have to do it yourself.

I think that's part of anything that's art.

You have to actually get your hands dirty.

You have to think about it.

You know, you're creating something where there was nothing.

So I think it's really art would be a mindset,

right, of creating something new and original

that you haven't see out there before.

So as long as you're doing that,

you know, you can apply that mindset to anything,

and then you're making art, right?

If you're making cool shit for people to consume

it's art, I think.

[Interviewer] Do you have any personal favorites on color?

Grey, grey with the E.