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MH: The Adidas Forum makes its way to the line, but besides the outsole, the shoe looks completely new.
JB: The shoe uses the outsole, but we took away a lot of the technical parts of the upper removing the layers of material and straps, but left it on the last, giving it the original piece.
MH: With Undefeated you have done countless collaborations with Adidas as well as other brands, that involve color and material plays. How much more intensive is the process and how much more time does it add to the process to design an entirely new upper?
JB: We work on the project year round. We have already turned in Spring ’12 and are working on Fall ’12. There are a lot of things you have to do such as making sure it merchandises well with the line and stays consistent with the story you are telling with the colors and fabrics. Really, the shoes become the last part of the collection. We work on the apparel first. Not that the shoes are an after thought, they are used as a nice tie in at the end of the day. But the shoes always end up superseding the apparel anyways since Adidas is known best for their footwear.
MH: What would you say is the biggest challenge that you have encountered with the project?
JB: It’s really been getting all three parties to agree on the scope of the vision. As we are pushing to a certain degree Adidas is still a business and it has to make sense for them. David’s attitude is “Let’s just make dope shit.” He wants it to look good, he wants others to like it, and he really wants it to be strong and stand for something to people. I would say the biggest challenge is satisfying all three sides in this ongoing project.
MH: With three parties involved and you might say three different goals, how do you personally define success with this line?
JB: That I don’t get hated on on the blogs [laughs]. I haven’t heard anything negative outside of “expensive gym wear”. But outside of that, the success is that I sell sneakers for a living, I get to meet iconic athletes and I get to meet dope people and everyone has been so respectful. This is nice, especially in our business now, where there are so many haters. No one likes anything. You read the comments everywhere and nothing is good for anybody. I just feel that there is a major miscommunication between everyone. I think I have done a good
job of navigating through all of that.
