Remember when your mom yelled at you to stop drawing on your sneakers? All that hard work you put into the portraits of your favorite cartoon and comic book characters, curlicues, graffiti, and multicolored checks got slurped down the drain of the washing machine. Eventually, you stopped “wasting your time.” You should have kept it up and gone on to art school to learn to paint on fabric. Today custom shoe artists are painting, inking, sewing, patching, and embroidering on new shoes. Some shoe manufacturers have jumped on the customization train, and are offering customized shoes from their banks of patterns and colors.
Companies like Vans and Etnies provide an interactive ordering system—you can design your shoes right on your computer and know how they will look long before you give customer service agents the first digit off your credit card. But the choices are limited, and men’s and women’s models are the same. Etnies custom shoes are only available in the Callicut and Cinch models— the only difference is the logo on the side. And although there are several colors and patterns available (as well as a very cool personalized ID that appears at the heel), placement is limited. The large surfaces are either black or white, and the children’s shoe (not available in the Cinch) doesn’t allow for an eyelet color. The price? A reasonable $69.95 for adults and $49.95 for children. Vans offers two models of custom shoe. You have a choice of color and designs on all surfaces of the Old Skool ($60) or slip-ons ($50). It’s a better choice of shoes, but the patterns are limited to checks and skull-and-crossbones.
So what do you do if you want Joey Ramon, ocean waves, or an artist’s inspired work on your custom shoes? And what if you want your custom shoes to be a pair of boots or high heels?
You might call John Fitzpatrick, custom apparel artist. He paints artist-inspired designs on the customer’s choice of shoe. He has even worked on baby shoes, although he won’t paint on the toes because they end up in babies’ mouths. His artistic approach is spiritual, and the art “comes from whatever is running through my head at the time.” He says a design can hold a “charge,” or frequency, to make people feel good when they look at it or wear it. He gets his custom shoes into the public by way of his other apparel designs, matching the art on the various articles.
Melissa Laine Scotton, also an apparel artist, creates her colorful designs on everything from coasters to snowboards. “I don’t really have one particular customer,” she says. “They range from skateboarders, band members, to anyone who loves wearing something special and unique.” Her designs come from everyday life and are bright, bold, and contrasty. She strives to make each design unique so the wearer feels special. She offers ready-made slip-ons for $120. She prices custom shoes by quote from $135, which is quite reasonable when you consider that it takes many hours to finish one pair of shoes.
Companies like Sneaker Phreaks fall somewhere between the retailers and artists. The company works with several custom shoe designers, and claims Hollywood stars and top recording artists as among their customers (although they list no names). One method they use is called “Hollywood Dots,” textured dots that form a design in your choice of colors. They will also add your favorite logo or fabric to your choice of shoe. Their “Red Carpet Edition” shoes—one-of-a-kind shoes for celebrities—will be coming out soon.
Fitzpatrick feels that some retailers are trying to cash in on the new popularity of custom shoes, and this will divide consumers of the future. He believes that customizing shoes started in the gang culture, where design and color was important in defining membership. But today’s shoe manufacturers have mainstreamed the customization process. Although Fitzpatrick doesn’t know exactly where custom shoes are going to be in ten years, he suspects that advanced silk screening methods will bring about a more commercialized (ready-made) form of custom apparel. Artists like him and Scotton will be involved in high-end apparel painting and ink work—in fact, there are people now who order custom shoes from him and never wear them. They keep them off the pavement because they have connected to the art.
Fitzpatrick also thinks people in the future will better understand why they make certain choices in their apparel, and that it could become a higher form of cross-cultural communication. Already people are sewing different fabrics and embroidering designs onto shoes. Kids will probably start painting their own shoes soon, but this won’t replace the years of education and hours of energy and care that go into shoes painted by trained artists like Scotton and Fitzpatrick.
Other custom shoe artists: Dassler Rebellion, where you will find detailed portraits on custom shoes; Sole Junkie, also a portrait artist with a simple pallet of bright color and clean, bold lines; CLP Studio, where artist Lane creates custom designs and interprets the work of famous masters for your tootsies.
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July 23rd, 2006 at 1:04 am
well done.
July 25th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Thank you!
July 25th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
That shoe is so fresh!
July 25th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Sweet shoes John, call me back.
July 26th, 2006 at 10:33 am
I want a whole outfit. Sent this article to some friends and they’re drooling, too.
July 26th, 2006 at 10:40 am
Hit him up. He’d be all for it - jhnftzpk@hotmail.com
July 31st, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Great JOB!
I wanted to personally thank you for supporting me and mentioning me in a really good article!
Humbly and sincerely,
SOLE JUNKIE