Art, not customs.
Creating from the heart, London-born Daniels Cordas is not your typical creative. Known for hand painting sneakers for mega-stars like Travis Scott, Billie Eilish and Stomzy, Daniel has turned his University side-hustle into a full-blown business after finding his creative flair during his studies. Balancing art and entrepreneurship, Cordas is informed by his background in fashion and streetwear and taps his free-thinking attitude to create stellar works of wearable art.
Partnering with 1800 Tequila to produce a new limited edition hand-painted bottle, we caught up with Daniel to speak about all things art, customs and tequila. Read our interview below:
Sneaker art has been a major part of hip hop and pop culture – whether it’s b-boys in America or London youth in the early 2000s. What initially sparked your interest in sneaker art?
I was always into art since I was a young, young kid and then when I was at University, so maybe slightly later than some of the kids today, that’s when I started getting into sneakers big time. When I started collecting sneakers I was already doing art on the side as a passion, I was doing a lot of hip-hop inspired art but painting on canvas. The first pair [of sneakers] I ever painted was for me, and then I put on Instagram when it was just getting started, so once I changed from doing quite casual canvas hip-hop inspired stuff and moved to wearable art work on sneakers and putting on Instagram it just started blowing up from there.
Hip-hop and rap culture were always an inspiration?
I remember being in school and all my friends and stuff were not into that sort of music at all. My favourite genre was U.K grime at the time and to them that was just weird. A lot of people were into it but my specific friends were not fucking with it too much, but yeah hip-hop inspired things, and UK grime. But in terms of my inspiration for artwork, it’s literally anything I find cool. So whether it’s an iconic person or an iconic photo or reference – like one of my favourite paintings I ever did is Biggie Smalls in the Coogi sweater. That’s hip-hop inspired but for me it was sometimes less about the music and more about imagery which is always very important.
You’ve created customised sneakers for Stormzy, Billie Eillish, Travis Scott, I mean the list is endless. How do you approach each piece? What’s the process for you?
It’s going to sound a bit cliche but people are always going to be surprised that these people are obviously absolute mega-stars but they’re also just like everyday people. They are ninety-nine percent of the time overly nice, polite and also this is their passion as well. They’re also super talented and have a passion for streetwear, art and in its bluntest terms, things that are cool. So they just want something that’s cool, and I think more so people want something that is unique, not something that everyone else has. So approaching it, you have to approach it like you do every other thing. I think a lot of my value as an artist is those ideas, having to come up with concepts and ideas over and over again. I’ve been doing this full-time for seven years so you have to have fresh ideas and have an overactive mind. Things are always popping into my head.
How do you stay on top of creativity when working at the pace that you’re at? How do you stay fresh creatively?
That’s a hard thing to do for sure, you have to be careful of everything like mental health and things like that. But I think what’s lucky is that I have been absolutely obsessed with it. I’m obsessed with art and sneakers, streetwear and I’ve always been obsessed with freedom and wanted to have my own business so I put in crazy work over the years. Especially at the beginning, if any kind of opportunity came up, I would make a lot of sacrifices and late nights but I think you need that passion and I think if someone doesn’t have that passion or obsession then unfortunately it’s going to be even harder or it may even not be possible. So yeah, it’s the love of it that actually sees you through.
When you get a brief from someone like Stormzy or Travis Scott, does that come with any nerves or pressure at all?
However weird it is, I don’t get that at all. I just get absolutely buzzing. Over the years, when speaking to some really famous people on Instagram DM’s and stuff, you kind of separate it a bit once you realise that they’re just as excited about this project as well. For me, it just makes me super buzzed, I do love all the celebrity culture and all that as well so when I remind myself it I get buzzed. Let’s say for example Travis Scott or Billie Eilish wearing my work on Ellen, that’s like, whether you like it or not, one of the most watched programmes in the world and one of the biggest artists in the world wearing the shoes I painted, I’m like ‘oh shit!’ like it’s really cool but at the time of creation you’re just thinking about the project and making it as best as you can which is what I buzz off.
At this point in your career, do you still get the buzz from just creating, or is it who you are creating for?
Definitely I still get it big time from just creating. I don’t really think about the other side too much, but I think I’ve learnt to take time to smell the roses and I remember when my one goal was just to be a full time artist right, so now everyday I wake up and my job is to paint things, create cool things and I think that I do recognise that I’m so lucky and it makes me super happy for me to do that. So I put that into every single piece almost, to just and create things that are cool. That’s the best job in the world to me.
When it comes to colour, do you have a colour theory or is it just whatever you’re feeling on the day?
I was impressed by this question because I’ve never had this put to me before, at all. But yeah, definitely I do. Overall you will have just a theme and you make everything works well, like the actual visual image, but I literally have like a complimentary colour wheel printed off so that will be like the most important thing to me. Let’s say for example I have a shoe or a basic item that’s all white but has a big bit of red on it, you have to then choose the colour that are complementary colours otherwise it’ll look completely off so yeah colour theory is massive.
I think it’s very interesting because I don’t have any training. I’m a self-taught artist. I went to university for business. So I think you learn those things completely naturally just not knowing what it is at the time, so I would always be trying to pick the right colours that suited the base item but not that that’s what colour theory is. I think you learn your lessons like that.
Sneaker art is really big in sports like the NFL, but we don’t really see people wearing customs on a day-to-day basis. Do you think there’ll be a time when customs make a comeback and be as popular as they were in the early 2000s?
think that’s also a really interesting question. I think people have always been doing this kind of thing, but at that time like you mentioned it blew up with the blowing up of social media as that gave a platform to a lot of people. I would say that was the boom of bad custom, so even when I started my tag line was ‘art not customs’ because I was talking a client and I was saying ‘this isn’t going to be that clean if I do it with my own style’ and he was like ‘Yeah, but I don’t want customs,’ and I took it straight away and I was like this is art not customs and I think some people have gotten tired of like boring customs and I think it will roll into a period of more finessed customs. What I try to do is just artwork that happens to be on sneakers. I’ve always said art is not defined by what you paint on, it can be on canvas, it can be on sneakers and it can be on bags and jackets and it can be on bottles.
Speaking of bottles, you’ve partnered with 1800 Tequila to create a limited edition bottle that pays homage to Mexican street art and folk art. There’s also a one of one hand painted bottle up for grabs. How did this collaboration come about?
I always like to do interesting things and different things and I think importantly, I was very careful and branding is my number one thing – also my brand is my name so like everything I put my name to and work with is literally like a reflection of myself. With 1800 Tequila, when they first told me I was like ‘yes I love tequila this will be perfect’ but I genuinely no to a lot more approaches that I say yes to so when they asked me I knew this would be a way to express my art, and they’re entwined with streetwear so it’s like the perfect collaboration in my eyes.
Our release was 500 but one of them is hand painted and put into circulation as normal so it’s like a Willy Wonka golden ticket. So people can go up to places like Harrods, and check whether the hand painted bottle is there or not so someone can have an original piece of art with that.
