she.lace<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSnkrs Day: Who are some of your favorite female sneakerheads?<\/strong><\/p>\nJamila:<\/strong>\u00a0For me, I\u2019m really liking Aleali May, and her style, it\u2019s very \u201890s. It reminds me of Aaliyah and all the girl groups I grew up on. Also, Melody Ehsani; I love what she does designing for Reebok, and creating her own line of accessories. Also she does a lot of women empowerment work, and that\u2019s a big influence for myself and she.lace.<\/p>\nKiah:<\/strong> I really like Vashtie Kola because it\u2019s kind of Afro-Trinidadian and those are my roots, and I can see myself reflected in her.<\/p>\nTravis:<\/strong> I don\u2019t have a particular female sneakerhead, but what\u2019s really standing out to me right now as a line is Fenty Puma. A lot of times when you see a signature line, irregardless of gender, they\u2019ll give an athlete or an influencer a shoe, and say, \u2018Okay, you can model it.<\/em>\u2019 It\u2019s few and far between when you see somebody come out not only with an original shoe, but an original line. With somebody like Rihanna, she resonates with she.lace on a number of levels. Her background is of Caribbean heritage, and though she\u2019s not seen as an ‘ideal’ role model for young women, for us she is exactly that. The line, Fenty Puma, is unapologetically original just like she is. I don\u2019t recall ever seeing a platform shoe that was desirable and coveted by both men and women.<\/p>\nSnkrs Day: Sizing wise, what are some brands that are great for female sneakers and pushing the culture forward?<\/strong><\/p>\nTravis:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s just a Canadian thing, because it\u2019s all about metrics and we\u2019re not as big of a market as you guys down there, but with the Aleali May 1s there was no women\u2019s sizing.<\/p>\nKiah:<\/strong> That\u2019s so ironic that even when it\u2019s a woman who\u2019s designing the shoe, there\u2019s nothing available for women. So I thought that was really funny.<\/p>\nTravis:<\/strong> Brands are all doing well marketing towards women, because it\u2019s a huge and growing market. Recently just alongside the Aleali May 1s there was the newest editions to the Portwine collection from Nike and marketing was \u201cForce is female.\u201d The US does a really good job with their more popular releases in making sure they\u2019re inclusive of sizing. The first women\u2019s Nike Foamposites coming out this fall is something to be looked at. Finally, in 20+ years, women don\u2019t have to look to Youth sizes or the smaller men\u2019s sizes for their own Nike Foamposites. That\u2019s something I\u2019m looking forward to because I really love Foams.<\/p>\nKiah:<\/strong> They also had International Girl Crew with the Nike Cortez, so I thought that was a good step forward as well.<\/p>\nSnkrs Day: What\u2019s the future of she.lace? Do you have an ultimate goal for where you want to take the blog?<\/strong><\/p>\nKiah:<\/strong> We have a bigger picture but we don\u2019t want to say for now. But we do want to say that the blog is more of a space for women to tell their stories and show them that there is room for them, you don\u2019t have to be ignored.<\/p>\nJamilah:<\/strong> It\u2019s about empowering women, so hopefully in the future doing some kind of events with young girls and stuff, creating that space for women in the sneaker world, and ensuring there is more representation in the sneaker culture. Seeing more women design sneakers as well, like the Air Jordan release with Aleali May. I would like our blog to play a role in that movement.<\/p>\nTravis:<\/strong> Another thing I applaud my cofounders for is that a lot of times the criticism we get is purely based on optics. A lot of people will say, \u2018It\u2019s just about sneakers, there\u2019s so many bigger problems in the world.\u2019 And yes, I know it\u2019s just sneakers and somewhat trivial, but it\u2019s important because it\u2019s a microcosm of other greater trends that we in society don\u2019t really address. I\u2019m first generation Canadian, Caribbean heritage, black male etc. I often think about some of the restrictions that may come with that. But I never really thought about my mother and my sister and my cofounders and the plight they might be in compared to me, because a lot of times you get caught up in your own issues. I say to myself, when it comes to the whole retail therapy thing, at least if all else fails I can go to the mall or any store and buy the sneakers I want. What about my cofounders? They don\u2019t have the same amount of options. Even for somebody like myself with socio-economic restrictions, there are people who live right alongside me that have the same struggles and then some. It\u2019s an issue that transcends sneakers into women\u2019s inclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Kiah Welsh laced up her first pair of K-Swiss, she felt like she could conquer fifth grade. But when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328292,"featured_media":564522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1225503],"cultivate_rss":[],"class_list":{"2":"type-post"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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