Salehe Bembury is imagining what his profession retrospective may appear like. The lauded footwear designer, who is credited with spearheading Versace’s entry into the sneaker market, has no scarcity of labor to exhibit. From catwalk to excessive avenue, he’s designed for Yeezy, New Balance, Crocs, Puma, Moncler and extra. However, he’s fantasizing a few “forbidden room” within the present; someplace “you can see what I’ve worked on that no one’s known about.”
Yes, Bembury, regardless of his inimitable work, has ghost designed — and for giant names too. He simply can’t speak about it as a result of nondisclosure agreements. One day he may have the ability to spill the tea. But not at present.
The 39-year-old designer confessed he forgot he’d talked about this in his new e book.
“Salehe: I Make Shoes” is the much-awaited artwork e book telling the story of Bembury’s exceptional profession thus far. Combining interviews, essays, illustrations and candid images, the e book takes readers contained in the area of interest and complicated world of luxurious sneakers. “I don’t think there are that many books that honor this space that we’re in — sneakers, hype culture,” he stated.
“To any young designer that’s trying to figure out their path and trying to understand how to pivot or move or jump to the next gig, or deal with your uncertainty or your vulnerability — this book has that in there through my stories and through my experiences,” he added.
Sneakers are a multibillion-dollar trade, although few designers are family names. The model is usually king. Only a handful of exceptions have crossed into common tradition, Nike legend Tinker Hatfield chief amongst them. Bembury is heading that manner.
Bembury got here from the tradition. As a child within the ’90s, whether or not he was watching the NBA or “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” he checked out what was on folks’s toes. He grew up in New York, a number of blocks from the bootleg distributors on Canal Street, although he cherished the true deal an excessive amount of to purchase knock offs. He was drawn to Nike — Jordan 11s, the Presto, the Air Footscape — and the narratives it constructed round new releases. But he wasn’t tribal; he may nonetheless admire a sneaker just like the AND1 Too Chillin, which broke the mould and made him take a look at footwear in another way.
Bembury knew early that he wished to design sneakers. The dream was for Nike. His dad and mom had been creative, however when it got here to his future, they nudged him towards a sensible center floor. He majored in industrial design at Syracuse University — a choice that ended up being “extremely helpful,” he mirrored, “because this is a job of communication and millimeters.”
Since then, he’s been on what he calls a “utilitarian quest.” “I’m not only looking to make things that look cool, they need to work,” he defined. “Because if it doesn’t work, it’s art.”
Bembury bought his first break in 2011, when he was employed by the innovation workforce at Cole Haan, which was owned by Nike on the time. With a mandate to experiment, he performed round creating hybrid ideas in a “Willy Wonka chocolate factory of creative expression,” he writes. From there he jumped to footwear startup Greats, the place extra of his designs had been launched. He started taking part in advertising and marketing and cultivating a following of his own. Then in 2015 the artist previously often known as Kanye West (now Ye) got here calling.
The designer decamped to the West Coast to hitch Ye’s workforce, the place he created military-style boots for Yeezy’s third and fourth collections.
As a boss “(Ye) was an extremely motivated, inspired one,” he recalled. “My job there was to be his pencil, bring his ideas to fruition and try not to get in his way.”
“Getting to learn from him and be kind of like a voyeur in that space was extremely educational,” he added. The designer discovered himself floating in new, influential circles —with fashion-forward artists like 2 Chainz and designers just like the late Virgil Abloh. “Yeezy was kind of the doorway,” he stated.
“During this period, anyone that worked with Kanye was then knighted with some kind of Kanye dust. That allowed me to step into the high fashion space and be respected and be listened to.”
But after leaving Yeezy in 2016, Bembury hit a tough patch. He freelanced for some time. With funds operating low, he fired out a collection of pitches to folks on LinkedIn. One of them was Dean Quinn, then-design director of Versace.
“I’ve kind of omitted this part of the story as of late because people get a little too caught up in it, but I was actually on the toilet when I sent the message,” Bembury confided.
Bembury argued Versace was lacking out by not tapping into the sneaker market, and that the energy of the model would translate. (Gucci, as compared, had been making sneakers since the ’80s.) Three days later, he writes, Donatella Versace emailed him with an invitation to Milan. In September 2017, Bembury started reporting on to her as head of sneaker design.
His largest hit at Versace was the Chain Reaction, which pulled from the style home’s iconography, together with a chunky sole that appeared like a thick gold chain. They turned a fixture at gigs and catwalk exhibits — on the runway and within the entrance row.
Bembury, in the meantime, was carving out inventive freedoms of his own. His contract with Versace allowed him to interact in a restricted variety of collaborations with different corporations. He selected Chinese sportswear firm ANTA and New Balance.
Even extra of his character was on show: vivid, high-contrast colorways and elaborate, high-tech sole development on the ANTA SB-01 and New Balance Yurt.
On the latter he famously added a whistle to the heel. “Truthfully, I came up with the whistle before I even came up with the why,” he stated. But he says he’s recurrently despatched movies of path runners making an attempt it out within the woods. “The consumer doesn’t know what they want until you show it to them,” Bembury added — “shout out (to) Steve Jobs.”
By the time he left Versace in 2020 he was vice chairman of sneakers and males’s footwear. As a fully-fledged unbiased designer with a following, Bembury entered his mercenary period, employed to flip manufacturers on their heads, make them cool and widen their viewers.
Crocs was a chief instance: In 2021 he created the Pollex Clog, a swooping, ribbed riff on the traditional Crocs silhouette. It had Bembury’s fingerprints throughout it — actually, because the 3D design was an amalgam of the designer’s own finger and thumbprints. He’d been toying with a fingerprint as his hallmark, and because the first collaborator Crocs had allowed him to design a shoe from scratch, which “seemed like the perfect opportunity,” he stated.
It exploded. They had been for adults and youngsters; Marc Jacobs and the person or girl on the road. Bembury stated folks would DM him saying, “‘You’re the reason I’m wearing Crocs for the first time.’” Crocs execs took word (he re-upped his deal with the brand in 2023).
“The Crocs moment was a pivotal one,” stated Bembury. “I had been living in this very niche hype streetwear space, and this was something that was meant for everybody.”
Bembury had transcended the sneaker bubble and proved his designs may deliver new customers to a model. Even extra corporations wished a chunk of him: Clarks, Vans, Moncler. He designed outerwear for Canada Goose and canopy artwork for rapper Wiz Khalifa. He doubled down within the mainstream sneaker market with a major partnership with Puma.
Still, he didn’t settle for all presents. The Wall Street Journal reported Bembury was approached by Nike — his childhood dream — a number of years in the past and he turned them down, citing the phrases of the deal. “While I’ll say that is a factual moment, I don’t really care to speak about it beyond that,” stated Bembury, who was sad this tidbit had “taken over the dialog.”
Even those that couldn’t get him had been seeking to him for inspiration. “I don’t want to be messy, but I had a designer from a company basically tell me that my work is the most seen stuff on their mood boards. That then helped me maybe confirm some speculation,” Bembury stated.
Despite all proof, the designer is uncomfortable with the concept he has clout. “I don’t know if there was a moment where I was like, ‘I’m the s—t,” he stated. But he accepts he has “an audience,” one which he’ll want for his subsequent enterprise — his own sneaker model, Spunge, which launched in October.
The transfer is “long overdue,” he defined. “There are very few people within footwear that have been able to cultivate the audience that I have; had the success that I have. And it’s all under — was under, I guess — the title of a different brand. It makes complete sense that this person that has continuous success within a space to kind of venture out on their own.”
“It’s time to execute everything I’ve learned,” he added.
Spunge’s first mannequin, Osmosis, retails for $150 and bridges modern sports activities sneaker and rugged path shoe, with colorways leaning towards the latter (Bembury is an outdoorsy man). He says two extra designs are “pretty much ready to go” and a 3rd is in improvement.
The shift has been giant for Bembury. The man who was as soon as Ye’s pencil now has his own workforce to delegate concepts to — “initially a very uncomfortable experience” he admitted, however essential to execute his imaginative and prescient.
“This is not a hype play. This is not a drop. This is not a moment,” Bembury stated. “This is a forever brand. This is ownership.”
