Our target customer is a 20 year old male who is forward in urban fashion & lifestyle, who lives in an urban neighborhood of a busy city – like part of Brooklyn in NY or Fairfax Ave in Los Angeles. If we had to assign a profession, he would most likely be in graphic design or photography.
Our buyer has a two distinct traits in mind:
1. He wears clothes based on their cultural value, and is not concerned with adhering to any “professional” or “athletic” look.
2. Stylistically, he prefers original cuts and fabrics instead of vibrant colors or flashy graphics.
We modeled our shoe design with these traits in mind. First, we started with a high top shoe instead of a sneaker, based on the current trends of high top shoes in young men’s fashion. Our customer is fashion forward, so this shoe bears a bolder design stylistically compared to a traditional low cut sneaker, which our customer would be uninspired by.
We wanted to work with a combination of thin suede and knit mesh for the material of the shoe, which would satisfy our customer’s interest in diverse fabrics. The suede would be the body of the shoe, and the knit mesh would act as accents for the inside lining and accents around the shoe’s sole. Relying on a single piece of fabric would allow the structural freedom of the shoe (like a moccasin), instead of being rigid and blocky (like most high tops look). This was inspired by the Yeezy Boost 750s.
We chose to adapt a deconstructive style to the shoes features, which has become increasingly popular by celebrities who chose to spend thousands of dollars on a shirt that looks like it has been eaten by moths. Nevertheless, we chose to implement asymmetric eyeholes for laces, to give the shoes the same messy/worn look. The laces do not serve a functional purpose, in fact the shoe is basically one piece of fabric, so we chose to put a rose gold zipper in the back of the shoe for fitting purposes.
Here are the final sketches:
Here is an example of how our target customer might style the shoes:
