Former athlete combines love of sport and art for custom sneaker business | 24CA News
Four years in the past, Cassandra Simon unwrapped artwork provides on Christmas Day. She had requested for instruments to check out her concept of jazzing up sneakers with distinctive designs.
This Christmas, seven folks unwrapped customized work by Simon, 25, who has turned a love of sneakers and a penchant for artwork right into a home-based business that is racking up a wait listing.
Each pair distinctive
A cracked-open window lets chilly November air into the small room that acts as a joint studio and workplace in Simon’s Regina condominium.
She leans over a pair of white Vans she has crisscrossed with pencil marks. She fills within the triangular sample with a slim brush dipped in shades of blue and inexperienced.
A pair of Nike Air Max lined in strips of tape sits on the nook of her modest desk ready to be airbrushed.
The desktop is marked with swooshes of paint that trace at previous tasks; the peg board in entrance of her, hung with the instruments of the commerce — shoelaces, scissors, tape — and playing cards that includes the Kicks By Cass emblem.
WATCH | Simon reveals a part of the creative course of behind a pair Milwaukee Bucks-inspired sneakers:
Nike Air Force 1s are Simon’s most typical fee, however she says she additionally receives requests for Air Jordans, Vans and Doc Martens — mainly, any new pair of kicks that may act as a clean canvas. Customers ship her the footwear, then they provide you with the design collaboratively.
Each pair can take anyplace from 4 to twenty hours, relying on the intricacy of the design and the methods used. Some of her most concerned have been hand-drawn anime characters and tributes to athletes.
“I don’t necessarily have a favourite style or type of shoe to do, because one of the things I like a lot about doing this is that it’s different every time,” Simon stated.
Birth of a business
Simon, who grew up in Edmonton, set data in observe and area as a hurdler whereas a pupil on the University of Alberta.
“It’s very individual and having your own style in the sport is part of the culture,” Simon stated.
Despite not having any formal artwork coaching, Simon has all the time been artistically inclined and recollects experimenting with varied artwork varieties together with her grandmother.
Throw in a love of Star Wars and a pair of Nike Air Max 90, and also you get her first foray into pumped up kicks.
The footwear caught the eye of her sisters, who naturally needed their very own. Then their buddies requested for some, and the commissions grew.
The Nikes additionally caught the attention of one other observe athlete: Atlee Simon, who attended the University of Regina and bumped into Cassandra at meets. The two started courting — which finally helped Atlee internet a pair of customized Air Max and Air Force — and he inspired Cassandra to show her ardour right into a business.
“I don’t even know how many pairs she’s done now, but it seems like every time she does a new pair, it’s better than the last,” Atlee stated. “Her skills are improving and people are noticing that.”
Cassandra has acquired orders for all the pieces from sneakers to put on with grad attire to a pair for a charity fundraiser run by a University of Washington sorority.
She stated it pleases her to see extra girls getting eager about sneaker tradition, with firms increasing their choices for ladies in flip. Her personal feminine buyer base is rising, too.
Dreams of enlargement
Cassandra moved to Regina in 2021 and married Atlee a 12 months later. (She wore Air Jordan 11s together with her marriage ceremony costume.)
She took up a educating place and gained a complete elementary faculty’s value of followers – and skeptics. As a lot as her college students marvel at her work — donned at occasions by her colleagues — she finds herself having to always persuade them she did the work herself.
It’s exhausting accountable them: The footwear are getting more and more intricate as Cassandra challenges herself with new methods, similar to airbrushing, or utilizing completely different textiles.
With her full-time educating job, Cassandra can handle about three to 5 orders a month. She hopes to develop that sooner or later.
“Seeing people’s reactions just confirms to me that I’m doing what I should be doing,” Cassandra stated, “and it just gives me motivation to keep doing it and be excited for the future of my little business.”
