My very first original design came from the Nike Kitchen development of Tom Foxen. The heel entry concept was slated for basketball and used in the Penny IV. There was a youth takedown that was developed that would never see the market. My developer Rich Cawley suggested how the concept would be perfect for babies and toddlers. So I started sketching.
A couple of days later I showed my work to Mike Aveni (Dunk, Flight 89, Woven). "Start over!" he barked as he looked at my reworked versions of the AF1 on an infant shoe. "Only what you need."
Next, he handed me the tools he used to build - not design - the woven shoes he'd worked on for the previous 2 years. For the next week I hammered nails into a seemingly impenetrable last until my fingers bled. What little was left was a synthetic suede patchwork that I gave to my business director, Cindy Trames. Cindy was two things, the world's best hype woman and the mother of a newborn. She tried the shoe over the weekend and it was in the line the following Monday.
As I thanked Mike for his push, he noticed my bandage fingers. I told him how difficult it was to hammer the nails into the last. He proceeded to show me how easy it was to hammer nails into the lasts he was using.
Adult lasts.
I handed Mike and infant last and he gave up after 3 tries. The infant lasts were 2x as dense and almost impossible to nail.
"Good for you," Mike said with an evil grin. "I would have quit and just drew something."
