Last year I explained in detail why I was giving up on the process of creating a new sneaker for ARCH. Developing and making a new shoe for ARCH unlike when I ran Sho-Shot, tends to be more of a vanity project. When I made Sho-Shot basketball shoes I was running Center Court Basketball. The goal was to create a shoe for my campers who came from rough areas and sometimes didn’t have a new pair to compete in. The shoes served a purpose. When I started ARCH it was because I understood a bit better how to operate a shoe company. I also started ARCH because all of the lightweight, neutral trainers were narrow. I wanted shoes that would allow my toes to splay because I was doing a lot of running, but then I wanted a simple, inexpensive casual shoe and that’s where everything fell off of the rails. I had created a shoe that was performing well and I went away from it. That story can be found under the ARCH logo on the homepage. Last year I decided to give a new shoe a shot after calling it quits in 2015. The problem was my manufacturer did a terrible job of creating a shoe from my daughter’s sketch:
Samples Are Expensive & Manufacturers Don’t Care … I’m Taking My Talents To South Beach | ARCH
I also thought that another shoe from another brand was definitely a vanity project. There are enough options in the world that adding another option that would have to start from square one was probably not the smartest thing to do. Then I began witnessing companies that had perserved and continued pushing forward in footwear and apparel getting rewarded. Small brands have begun to be acquired as private label options for bigger companies. I thought to myself that maybe one more try would be okay so I sat down with my daughter (she’s 11) and we began sketching out the same shoe with one difference, we wanted a knitted sock look for our lightweight trainer to offer a small amount of compression and comfort especially for those who like to go sockless.
The result was the JD213 Knit Trainer. The shoe is named after my shipmate Jarvis ‘Dino’ Dean. Dino suffered from PTSD and he took his own life. Our squadron was VF-213. Partial proceeds from all sales will go towards supporting mental health for veterans. I’m not quite sold on producing the model, but if I do I wanted the shoe to have meaning. Here is your first look at early sample teaser shots. Let me know what you think.
