This summer, 30 young students from all the around the world have come together in Portland, Oregon, determined to change the footwear game by embarking in the PENSOLE World Sneaker Championship. Assigned to teams and representing a diverse range of brands, boutiques and major corporations across the industry, they’ve began their journey to design a product that’s ready for retail. These are their stories.
TEAM ADIDAS
Roster: Dexter Sulit, Claudia Lopez, Daniel Raes and Marcus Taylor (CMF)
Life is filled with pressure. Pensole is no different, in fact it is an amplified version of life. You put 30 students together for four weeks, make it a competition, add in their heroes to judge and you’ve just turned the volume past eleven. It’s like a reality television show where it starts out nice and slow, then eventually the stress gets to everyone and things start to unravel. Now I’m not saying anyone is flying off the hinges but there is definitely a sense of urgency and pressure.
That pressure comes from all angles and begins with the pressure to make D’Wayne proud. He has invited us into what feels like his home, provided us everything we need, and most importantly given us his knowledge. The only way to thank someone for deeds of this magnitude is to listen, work hard and transfer that knowledge to someone else in need.
In my life so far I’ve had an abundance of help from many great people and the only way I know how to thank them is to become what I promised I would, a footwear designer. I plan to do just that and then when I have achieved what I set out to in the footwear world I will pass everything I know to the next generation of designers. Designers can’t just make products anymore, they have change lives in a positive way.
The only way to deal with all of the pressure is to take it in, absorb it and polish it into a diamond. That diamond represents the knowledge and experience that will be passed on to someone else so that we are always moving forward. We must translate the past through the prism of the future.
Our team getting a valuable lesson in materials and the importance of clear visual communication. Claudia put her excessive sack of markers to work and rendered out he stair climbing shoe. And here’s Dexter’s laboratory of sand runners.
