Adewale and I met shooting a look book for Cliff USA. Me and him instantly connected on our energy and shared passion of the come up and how to move within our fields. Adewale is a jack of all trades from modeling, to small gigs on Netflix, to designing shoes and accessories he can do it all.

We talked about his trials of growing up in North side of Chicago raised by a single mother. He discussed the dangers of his surroundings, trying to avoid the over arching theme of violence that surrounded him. Adewale said that his older brother who lives in LA was a role model and an inspiration to escape his surroundings to pursue a safer and creative career path. He went to LA where his brother held him down for a bit. Eventually he moved to New York.

Adewale always had a goal to do something different. He always had a passion for shoe design, and had been wanting to start something for a while, quarantine opened the door for him to focus and develop his process. At the beginning of COVID, he was inspired by his girlfriends 1972 Nike Cortez’s that were worn down and coming apart. He wanted to see how he could rework and deconstruct them into something totally new. This got him in the ultimate creative mindset. Adewale wanted to go even further, this is where it all began.

I watched him make a pair of his shoes while we chopped it up and continued to connect on our journeys. His process began with deconstructing the main components of the shoe, then putting it back together with wool fabric/materials. Everything he does and makes has been in his studio during quarantine. He hopes to upgrade to a new set up soon. He is 100% self taught and learned a lot through trial and error. Adewale scoured the depths of youtube for various elements that contribute to his design process.

Just 4 months in Smino and Lil Yachty were the first celebrities to cop a pair. More recently, Justin Beiber got his hands on a pair, and West Side Gun got a 1 of 1 custom which he’ll be rocking in his upcoming music video.