Pharrell Goes Sneaker Shopping With Complex

[Music] what's up everybody it's joe from complex we're in miami at the webster with music fashion and all-around pop culture icon pharrell what's up bro how you doing gonna do some sneaker shopping today gonna see what he's feeling what he's not and then hopefully he's gonna buy some sneakers yes sir let's go [Music] pharrell early on you said that designing sneakers was less about you and putting your face on sneakers and more about fulfilling a childhood dream wow man you're so good at this that's crazy you're like so cute polished thank you um maybe you you wanted to do what you're doing like all your life absolutely and i think that's what i always want to feel is that like i'm still striving in the name of ambition of just trying to like conquer yeah so i think that's what goes in the process of everything that i design and my team works on and then you get the nickname skateboard p in high school were you wearing like vans low profile sneakers well that nickname wasn't from high school as much as it was about being in the industry at the time and there wasn't really anybody in that world or from our world and it was an homage to that part that time in my life which was in high school so everybody got it like that just was that's what everybody did at that age like everybody skated even being young do you remember like what shoes you were wearing yeah for sure vans were the most affordable and you know jordans was always like the coveted thing like i always wanted like jays but you know we couldn't afford them and so it was like vans and at a point like sometimes we veered off the path and had like air walks uh air walks then it was a moment where i had like some visions yeah it came up tony hawk was big on air walk and and like vision street where around that time yeah the vision street where it was like that was a moment because it kind of like they had to show of like what the adidas was doing and adidas at that time was like king of all kings obviously because of the run dmc song that was like the 80s and they like really rolled that wave even jordan himself wanted to play that it's really serendipitous that i end up you know working with adidas and our partnership that was like my first pair of shoes that i ever purchased myself was adidas but before that up to my mom and dad's devices it's like the skate shoes were yeah much more affordable totally fast forwarding a little bit you go to japan and you're looking for a studio to record in and you hear about this guy through your jeweler jacob the jeweler nigo and he offers his studio up to you but you go to his atelier you see apparel and you see these sneakers vapes for the first time right well that was a thing where first of all tokyo and japan itself is a different dimension altogether when you first get there you feel the calm you feel the humility of the people you feel a lot of the stuff that they have going through culturally and so when i went to his showroom it was like that feeling times tim because here's a guy that created this space his foot on like you're walking through his thoughts and his imagination and i'm looking at this guy and i'm going you've absolutely lived out every one of your dreams and turned them into businesses i was like it exists like this is a real thing so my mind was blown and then when i looked at the vape stuff for the first time i was like that's not a nike right i mean we love nike yeah right like even outside adidas we love nike like adidas the folks at nike love like like yeah they love us like right so i can say that yeah i'm just in case anybody's a little like shocked thrown off by that i was like this is not a nike this is something else just you know taking inspiration of the air force one and just blew it out to another place you know all the little fine details uh when you look at the the height of the actual like outer sole when you look at like the materials that he chose to use fedex always delivers i like that it's ambiance miami's turning into the new new york and vegas like we got to let these things happen so when you look at like all the little fine little small details my mind knew something was very very different yeah but like slight sophisticated levels up he would pick a colorway it had three different colors he would do three different iterations of that colorway and i saw like 50 200 shoes and i was just like i just wanted one pair yeah yeah and i'm a sample size okay so he was like take them all wow amazing and that's how i felt okay what you're saying yeah it's i was doing that okay i was like really standing there like wow life is good cause i knew what i was about to go back to america and do is wreak havoc with him yes and we did that was when you were like gotta go to america and we gotta figure out how we're gonna work together and then early on 2004 drop it like it's hot video remember i'm in college it comes out with snoop the lyric i'm a nice dude with some nice streams see these ice cubes see these ice creams and you close up to the camera with the new shoes yeah that you just created with this guy but they're blurred out yeah do you remember like that part of the i remember being so upset would be very pointy a question i remember being so upset with bet like how are y'all doing this but then you got to realize it's viacom and they pretty much make money off of anything that airs okay you know they own the air so bt did that they were yeah they blurted out and i was like ah man like but it ended up working in our favor because then people really wanted to see it and i thought it was conscious from you doing that because you didn't want to show it yet no i had to catch up to that okay interesting to that my mind wasn't there i was all about like giving and sharing as i still am yes um within reason okay but at that point like that was something that trolling really started like pay for play yeah it like really became like a thing pharrell a lot of classics on this table we have the source them from flight club and king of creams a collector of your hits through the years so let's get into some of these like iconic sneakers something that has stood up the test of time this nard dunk yes sir part of the artist series it came around that time do you remember anything about this project i don't even know if i've seen you wear these i definitely wore them i just don't know if i ever wore them for a shoot okay but yeah that was like a again that was a different time i was super inspired by this new brand at the time i think caroline from show part was married to this guy uh de graciano and he was doing these watches that i think had where the the bands were made of like eel skin no no no um stingray which doesn't sound right but it's one of those okay and i just thought the texture of it was so cool and so when they asked did you know did we want to do a dunk i was like yeah let's do it with that and we tried as hard as we could and i think the closest we came to the execution was something that i personally wasn't happy with because it felt more like a basketball's got it texture okay the shoe turned out good but what i wanted to do was was had more texture got it got it interesting and now they go for a ton of money and like this whole dunk reemergence is crazy so these are heavily in the conversation yeah my boy nino was the one that likes scalia yeah okay nino was the one that like really helped me like source out a lot of dunks in the very beginning because once i dove in i like really dove in we talked about nego downstairs but like 2006 the roadster your character yes sir your face and then this one talk about getting these two collaborations that was like an ode to like this low top acg moment okay from like the 80s the roadster silhouette we were able to have like the bubble in the back all of that was homage got it you know and then fast forwarding the chanel pharrell nmd releases that colette 500 pairs you were a chanel ambassador but like chanel putting their name on a sportswear brand did you like build with carl on it even yes yes and then you know it was one of those like one and done things okay carl was super kind to me i learned a lot um from him there was a couple of collections he did where there was a nod toward like aspects of my life and he would show them things those things to me and so when i was able to like do the nmd shoot like because he named our collaboration you know chanel pharrell yes that was his idea and the shoes as well because i was like what do i put on there he was like oh chanel pharrell of course yeah i was like i never put my name on that's true that's truly that's true and how was i gonna tell him no so then we went on to do the the the collection together and that was great too absolutely the shoes they had like a lot of art on them and the pearls and things like that yeah yeah but this chanel on a sportswear brand is definitely a moment and then you know it ended up being one of those shoes that like the numbers on them were crazy limited yeah yeah the sell like i mean just in terms of like resale value oh crazy [Music] new silhouette the seachona yeah they're coming out talk about this model and what you're excited about with this model well the soul itself sort of accentuates like the way the foot operates and and how we walk obviously all shoes are supposed to do that but you sort of see it in a design you see hints of that expression in the soul men and obviously the way it bleeds into the upper you know that's something that i feel like adidas has done really well in the past couple of years and then for us you know with human race despite being close to the earth to china itself is earth that's a native american word okay and we reached out to our indigenous brothers and sisters for not only the blessing but the right word my god dj two bears the standing rock suit the arikara okay our north dakota that was a good feeling i think for us it's just like we just want to give people something that brings them a little bit closer to the to the earth to ground them even like from the start the super color project with all those 50 superstars so it's like a lesson in kind of like inclusion and things like that yeah and then another thing that you've debuted a few days ago the nmd have you like gave them a wear test i worked on it with them okay yeah we wrestled to get it to this place got it and we feel really good about it that's why i was in them and yeah mine are coming shortly we wanted to get that right that constellation had to be every star needed to be in the right place in order to make the design that people could see and feel you know you're always about next you're always looking forward but little uzi vert he's an 18 year old kid i think he's in class and he's wearing the board flips on the desk crazy and then a couple weeks ago he helps to unveil this new silhouette full circle moment you've seen everything in this industry in the music industry but those moments to like obviously you're you're like their north star when it comes to influence what's it like to see uh that was a pleasure because that's slow bro you do work and you know he's just he's a visionary himself um he's the guy with the pink diamond as a third eye yes that was that was awesome i'm always honored because all those guys are like rock stars definitely i don't even know what that is anymore but i know that current position is held by like that generation that the ginsengers they're the ones that are like forging forward and yeah blazing trails i don't i don't know i don't know how to answer that except to say that i'm just honored okay i know like i don't know about being in north star but i'm just happy to be a part of the their sky got it lastly we'll start with the green colorway are they all gonna drop at the same time or we're gonna have a staggered release uh i think the first thing people are gonna get in the blue okay these are friends and family yeah that's friends and family on the human race site okay by the way humarace.com i don't know when the yellow and there's also a burgundy coming okay [Music] so pharrell came through we went through a sneaker history didn't even have to shop thanks so much for taking the time thank you man make sure you check out the new drop these are adidas everywhere [Music] you

Channel: Complex

Views: 2,179,654

Keywords: sneakerhead, complex, complex originals, sneakers, news, entertainment, current affairs, culture, complex tv, complex media, complex networks, pharrell, pharrell williams, pharrell sneakers, pharrell williams sneakers, pharrell williams hotel, farell williams, farrell williams, pharrell william, happy, grindin clipse, neptune, sneakerheads be like, sneakerheads

Id: _NoH413CM74

Length: 13min 29sec (809 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/KabukichoThottie]

At his level he doesn’t need to go shopping for anything lol. Think there’s any store that has something he can’t get?

Ups to Pharrell for doing something good with his money.