Nice Kicks: Your New Balance MT580 also possesses a ton of unique texture/pattern characteristics. Reflective 3M, suede, argyle, mesh and a gum bottom are all apart of your design. It seems as if you favor materials over colors. Were you going for a more materialized construction with this shoe? Was that the focal point of this collaborative effort?

Rick Williams: Definitely. Every time me and my business partner Ro go to business meetings, his favorite thing is 3M. So, that was a must when we came up with the design. We had to add 3M. It’s kind of like a shop favorite. As for the gum sole, all of our favorite shoes have gum bottoms.

Nice Kicks: Argyle is a pattern we rarely see on sneaker design. What motivated you to go with this unique pattern?

Rick Williams: The argyle was a good way for us to incorporate all of our colors within the shop. It was a dope pattern that let us basically incorporate everything.

Nice Kicks: We heard that you were inspired by a few things in regards to this creation such as your shop and other sneakers. What other shoes entered your thought process when designing this New Balance MT580?

Rick Williams: Basically, it wasn’t any particular shoe. One of the shoes we thought of was the Air Force 1s with the gum bottom (white and black). Those are classic shoes, and that’s what we were thinking about when we added the gum bottom. As for the 3M, we were inspired by a bunch of shoes we have in our collection that feature 3M. So, we had to have 3M for this project. It wasn’t a particular shoe though. It wasn’t inspired by the Jordan 1, like we’ve seen? from shoes in the past. It was more like different elements of shoes we love, so we tried to incorporate those things in our design.

“Every time me and my business partner Ro go to business meetings, his favorite thing is 3M. So, that was a must when we came up with the design. We had to add 3M. It’s kind of like a shop favorite.” – Rick Williams

Nice Kicks: This shoe is basically an introduction to your brand for those sneaker enthusiasts who didn’t know you existed. The image of a chef has become your official logo, and you have placed it on the hangtag of this shoe. How did the chef logo come about? Who thought of this logo?

Rick Williams: When we me and my business partner bought the store, it was a friend of mine that worked here named Paul. He is an artist and he went to design school; he now works for DC Shoes. He had a drawing that I found, and we really liked it. At the time, we were thinking about having a mascot. The original design is a chef. It’s kind of like the maid robot on The Jetsons. The shop and our name is more inspired by the auto culture, but the logo tends to throw them for a loop. It just gives us another element to give the people something to talk about. It kind of took on a life of its own. It was something we thought would be a dope design for a hat, and then everybody kept asking for it. Big Sean kept asking for it. It then became our mascot.

Nice Kicks: Speaking of Big Sean, we just interviewed him a couple of months ago. What was his reaction to the Burn Rubber x New Balance MT580?

Rick Williams: Well, Sean wasn’t really able to be here for the drop. He’s been out of town. Honestly, I don’t know exactly what he thinks about it. I know he was excited and wants a pair. We’ve talked every once in awhile but since we were so busy with all of this, I haven’t had the chance to kick it with him about it.

To read the rest of the interview click here.