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Interview With Junior Clint Who Redesigns His Own Off-White x Nike Project

By September 3, 2017Fashion News, Features




Junior Clint Who Redesigns His Own Off-White x Nike Project.

Meet 21-year-old model Junior Clint from Manchester, UK. The young creative took to redesign the OFF-WHITE x Nike sneaker design with his sewing machine. “I was scrolling through instagram several days ago and came across the Off-White X Nike collection by Virgil and was inspired to make a shoe with my sewing machine.” We at PAUSE spoke with Junior Clint about his latest creation and how he did it.

From model to designer, when did this all spark? 

It’s all so surreal, I’ve only been learning how to sew for about 5 month and really grateful for my growth so far. The Spark to start this shoe came when Virgil put out an Instagram post of the Off-White Air Force 1 trainer with the caption, “@off____white c/o @nike shoe exercise comes with design tutorials and workshops for all on earth with internet access”. This post made me believe that I could do it so I tried and came up with this shoe. I wouldn’t label myself a designer yet as I’m still in the process of learning but will hopefully earn the title one day.

So you’ve basically recreated your own OFF-WHITE x Nike edition, what inspired this? And how did you come up with your own design?
 
The inspiration behind the shoe was from the designer himself. Virgil Abloh exposed me to all the different compartments of a shoe which left me thinking of the process it takes to make a shoe. For example, by simply labelling the laces with “shoes laces” and exaggerating the stitching on the Nike swoosh with a zigzag pattern. Another inspiration for making the concept shoe came from reading the biography ‘Shoe Dog’ which gave me insight into how Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman came to create Nike and how they both used their initiative and the DIY method to stand out from their competitors and make Nike the company it is today.
I knew that in order to start the project I would need to firstly find the sole for the shoe. After doing research,  I found out that having a unique sole can be costly so I used my initiative by cutting open a pair of my old Novesta shoes and using the sole as the foundation of the project.  After having the base, all the other parts of the shoe I improvised and took inspiration from the original Nike x Off-White™ collaboration.
Will you be creating more shoes in the future?

Most definitely, I’m working on a project as we speak.

So lets talk about the process, what soles and textures did you use to develop your shoe?
Firstly, I’ve cut a set of Novesta gum soles from an old pair of shoes and spray painted them with a cloudy grey colour. For the body of the shoe, I used ivory white canvas material and inserted gold eyelets for where the laces are inserted. The outer face of the traner includes the detailed writing :
Off White™ NIKE 
“JR CLINT SAMPLE”
Manchester, UK
c. 96

and added see-through yellow tape for details.

Under the writing, i’ve added three small gold eyelets for a breathable feel to the shoe. The inner face includes orange see-through plastic material which is overlapped by Darice Mesh plastic canvas, cut to match the shape of the Nike Swoosh logo which I’ve embroidered onto the fabric using a zig zag stitching pattern and is detailed with a black square shape at the tail of the Swoosh.

I’ve also attached lines (inspired by the Off-White™ logo) that overlap the Swoosh.

On the tongue of the shoe, I’ve sewn a condensed zig-zag pattern using black thread on the left sneaker and orange on the right.
Similar to the inner face of the shoe, the logo on the tongue is an orange Nike Swoosh which blends in and out of the black lines.
Both the printed writing on the side of the shoe and logo I designed in photoshop and had them printed at my local printing store. To finish of the shoe I used white rope laces and spray painted black lines onto the remaining plastic material, which is sealed with a zip tie.
The most difficult part of the project was making sure that both sides of the sneaker were symmetrical and adding the eyelets for the shoe laces to fit correctly.
Source of material:  Abakhan Fabrics, Fred Aldous – Manchester

Processed with VSCO with c1 preset

 

How long did it take you to create the shoe?
It took me about 4 days to complete the shoe.
 
What do you love about OFF-WHITE?
 
I love the fact they represent all things design, not just clothing. I believe that pay more attention to the end users usability rather than trying too hard to recreate the wheel which I feel all good companies do e.g Apple.
 
Would you continue to create more shoes, if so, what do you have in mind to recreate next?

Yes most definitely, I’m still in the process of making my own original designs so will keep the guys @ PAUSE updated at every stage of the process.




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