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.
**NOTE** The Final Day took place late last week and final presentations were presented on Friday. Click here to watch the final presentations and here to vote for the winner.
TEAM ADIDAS:
Roster: Dexter Sulit, Claudia Lopez, Daniel Raes and Marcus Taylor (CMF)
There’s only one day left and I can’t even count the amount of hours I have spent on this project. Not that I would want to, I hate math. That’s one of the perks of being a designer. Very little math and a minimal amount of tests in college. It just takes time. You have to be able to sit in front of a computer in four hour sessions, preferably with Netflix playing on another device.
The final day at Pensole will kind of be like when Netflix asks you if you would like to continue watching. I’ve already been through the first 30 episodes of Gilmore Girls do you really think I want to stop now? We don’t want Pensole to end. An intermission might be nice, but we’re ready to learn more. Maybe we’ll be offered a position at a company. That would be the double rainbow of this whole experience.
For now we have to focus on tomorrow and the opportunities that it presents. The goal of every presentation is to tell the story of your shoe in the most compelling way possible. If we do that then we have succeeded. If that’s not good enough for the top eight then we’ll start our next project on Saturday and make it even better. If it is good enough for the top eight then we will start Sunday. Either way, we are too legit to quit and we WILL become footwear designers.
The project statement for Claudia’s stair running shoe. The project statement for my city running shoe. The final for Dexter’s sand running shoes.
