A Skateboarder’s Guide To Shoe Design With Oliver Clark
Welcome back to ‘A Skateboarder’s Guide to’ a series where I interview skateboarders about something that has absolutely nothing to do with skateboarding (actually this one kind of has something to do with skateboarding) – here we have skateboarder and innovative griptape applier, Oliver Clark giving his guide to shoe design.
Shoes are the most important part of skateboarding. Well, at least one of the most important, judging by how often they are spoken about by skateboarders, they are neck and neck with pants on what gets spoken about the most. ‘How do they fit?’ ‘How’s the flick?’ ‘Do the laces rip easily?’ ‘Are they Vulc or Cupsole?’ You know, just the regular day to day skateboarder conversations. While having so many opinions on shoes, not many skateboarders know the first thing when it comes to designing them.
Oliver Clark, however, knows how and has designed many shoes, formerly for Marc Jacobs and now for his namesake label, Oliver Clark, where he makes anything from loafers handmade in Italy, perfect for a night out, to shoes that will excite the most nostalgic of skate nerds. So, I thought there would be no better person to talk to get the guide to designing shoes and the griptape vs shoes debate.
Also, fun Oliver fact before we start, he started skateboarding after becoming friends with Anthony Pappalardo, not the writer, the one who skated to Dinosaur Jr’s, ‘Forget The Swan’ in Habitat’s Mosaic.
What is a shoe?
An obligation. Not wearing shoes is way weirder than not having your shirt on. Shoes say a lot about people, they say about where you are. Shoes are confusing.
A confusing obligation.
Yeah, sort of. Once you’ve been designing them for so long you try to make it fun again. So, like I try to design like – ‘what would a kid who is in court for trafficking marijuana want to wear?’ It gets so boring to design shoes flat out.
I feel like, what’s a cool band from Australia? Tame Impala? You know that band?
Yeah, I know that band [laughs].
He’s kind of a cornball now but I like him. He’s obviously very good. Doesn’t he write music all weird? Like he writes it upside down, backwards?
I have no idea, but upside down would be fitting being in Australia.
Hmm, yeah. Right side up. Shoes to me are a means to an end. I like to sell shoes that’s a way to make money, but I like to do things around it. I like to make art mostly. Shoes are cool, I guess you could say that. Shoes are cool.
Shoes are pretty cool, you’re right. How did you learn to design shoes?
It was a weird thing, when I first started, because I’m not very good at drawing, I would fingerpaint shoes. Then I found Photoshop, so I started getting technical, then 3D and Photogrammetry, so I was taking 1000 photos of a shoe and making a 3D model, it was like this complex thing. I realised again a year ago that fingerpainting was the best way. So, I went through this long process where I realised it is more about having a factory that you can connect with on a spiritual level, so that they interpret your tone in the pattern you make, more so than just drawing something. It’s like a skater and a filmer relationship. Now I don’t even have to design a shoe, I just have to say stuff to them like ‘Take a tall Givenchy boot, add some fur, tone down the heel, more aggressive in the toe’ and they’ll make what I’m imagining.
Damn, it’s like your own personal AI.
Basically, that’s what I’ve been working on.
What do you need to know to design a shoe?
I think you need to realise you don’t need to add shit. Whenever someone has an idea for a shoe it’s always got extra shit on it, too many lines, too many this, too much of that. I would say it doesn’t need a logo, that’s important.
Do you remember the first time you wore a shoe?
When I was a baby, I was really into how things touched, I don’t like to touch things that are foreign, and I was really into these red shoes my mum wore. They’re Mormons, so they wear a special underwear underneath their clothes, it’s a one-piece suit, basically a tank top with shorts. It’s very silky. I used to always hold that and the red shoes. I remember the red shoes but the first shoes I remember putting on were baseball cleats. I’m not a shoe fetish person, everyone assumes I am one, but I’m not.
How about tying up your laces?
I remember a teacher in pre-school taught me a bunny ears situation. I had trouble drawing my 5’s I would draw them like a J with a T top. So, I remember it being difficult and it didn’t stick the first time. I would cry when I couldn’t do stuff when I was little… I still do actually. Have you ever been so frustrated with something you just cry?
[Flashbacks to crying in Grade 7 Maths class] Oh, of course.
It comes natural to me for some reason [laughs]. Sometimes if I’m skating on my own, I’ll get really frustrated and start tearing up.
[Laughs] It happens to the best of us. After all these years of trial and error have you worked out the most efficient way to tie up your laces?
It goes back to the fingerpainting thing, the most efficient shoes were designed by native people, like a single moccasin slipper with a super low profile leather sole or even cowboy boots. No laces are the most efficient. In the future I think it will be composite materials and elastics. In the past it was just like you just slip that shit on. You know that, you guys wear Blundstone’s over there.
Yeah, we’ve got those. No laces on those. They’re like a Chelsea boot.
Yeah, they get it. It’s so much easier. You need laces for some things, I guess. I have done things with laces that weren’t for shoes.
Like what?
I strung a crossbow with a shoelace. I bought one recently because I was trying to shoot a griptape with a crossbow and it wasn’t working. What else have I done? I guess people use it as belts, but the shoelace is a dying breed, I think.
Well, on the topic of shoes, what are the best shoes to wear while designing a shoe?
Hmm… this is a good one. Probably like slippers from a Four Seasons, those slippers are really good. It depends how well you can move your feet; some people can pick up apples at the grocery store with their feet. If I could do that I would just design shoes with my feet. That would be something, a shoe designer who only designs shoes with their feet. The foot knows the way.
That is genius. What do you think is the best outfit to wear?
Pajamas with a nice shirt or a costume, just try to dress as something to get in the zone.
What sort of costume?
I’ve been in a cowboy phase for two years, this was before cowboy was cool, my family are cowboys. Right now, I’m into looking like I’m your brother-in-law who’s going to tell you about Crypto at family dinner, ‘Have you heard of Ethereum?’ That’s the kind of look I’m going for.
I think that’s really fitting for LA.
Oh yeah, for where I live it is.
Have you ever gotten influence for a shoe design that isn’t a shoe?
Definitely. I went through a phase where I was into shoes that were aggressive shapes. I was into anything that was that shape, Muppets faces have that shape, shovels and a slice of pizza have that shape too. They were really pointed and looked like something a bartender in Mykonos would wear. I was really into making weird shapes, I would look at something and be like, ‘Could that be a shoe’. I made some weird shoes; I made this sandal that was a dramatic mold of my face.
Does skateboarding make you a better shoe designer?
No, because skateboarding takes too much time away from designing shoes.
Does designing shoes make you a better skateboarder?
No, griptape is going to win every time.
How do you think the shoe industry could combat griptape?
I don’t want to sound too crazy and I’m not joking there could be something other than griptape.
Well, they tried rubber grip.
But did they try grip shoes? What I think they could do is take the grip and tone down the grit by fifty per cent, so it is more of a finer grip and make it the upper of a shoe. The grip and the shoes need to work together, Nike should be like this is our Nike shoe and this is the grip that works with it. Basically, what needs to happen is people need to try new things. But it’s like baseball where wooden bats and it’s part of the game. That’s really what it is like, it’s just part of skateboarding and doesn’t need to be changed.
Everything is kooky in skateboarding but say tomorrow I came out that was grip and a pair of shoes that weren’t affected and worked together, lasting forever and skated the same. Do you think people would buy them?
I don’t think so. The gimmick thing never really works.
It’s not a gimmick if it works.
Well, the rubber grip thing never took off.
I don’t think rubber grip is the solution. I think you’ve got to have the shoes and grip work together. Maybe the real solution is a shoe that has Velcro parts, you can Velcro off the sidewall and the toe cap, when one part wears out you can replace certain parts of the shoe. It would start the conversation. I think the most important thing in the world is the animals and lots of animals get slaughtered for skate shoes and imagine if you put that down by fifty percent. That’s cows on cows on cows just chilling.
Yeah, but then again, the sole would still wear out.
Yeah, so I think what the real solution is, teach people to skate differently so they don’t ruin their shoes. Don’t do tricks like this anymore, just do tricks that don’t hurt your shoes. That’s kind of how I skate.
How would you describe your relationship to shoes?
It’s like a child or an ex-wife where you just love them so much, but it is also the source of a lot of stress.
What advice would you give to a budding shoe designer?
If you’re doing your own brand, focus on quality. If you want to work for a designer, you have to start at the bottom. There is no way you’re going to get hired as a shoe designer unless you have some crazy resume. I started out as a stock person at Marc Jacobs, and I volunteered to do all this extra work, then got hired doing window displays, then merchandising stores and eventually became a shoe designer.