00:00and air force ones if you think about it they they have this long history of people
00:05customizing them that's like a blank canvas but no one's customized them this way before
00:12hey billboard nice to see you come on right in to my um home studio my laboratory if you will
00:22my name is andy martinez and i make boots
00:27what kind of boots well viral internet sensation boots nike cowboy boots
00:36i call them the andy boot because it's more of like a self-portrait approach to design so if i
00:43were to be a shoe i would look just like this i grew up in washington heights and the upper
00:47west side
00:48basically anywhere between the one line i got my start designing well before it was a job title
00:55design is just like second nature to me it's it's been it's more of like a lifestyle thing to me
01:00i've been designing and drawing all my t-shirts and sneakers since i was like in fifth grade
01:11oh hey give you a little tour of my my home office if you will so right here we have
01:17a queue of three
01:20boots that i'm supposed to do for a client this is another one that i'm supposed to work on but
01:24uh
01:25basically black air forces did a nice little fade brown gradient to it these kind of made some noise
01:32online recently i mean i never got to sell them but you got the idea come on new york city's
01:38greatest
01:38hits if there were to be a shoe that represented new york it'd be right here instead of air max
01:4395
01:44these are soul max 75. i um positioned my camera and i'm like i put them on and i'm just
01:51like trying
01:51to see what the camera is going to look like and right at that moment this girl walks by right
01:56in
02:03that moment i was just like thank you one day i'll i'll give these to beyonce the most interesting
02:09part about this actually which is pretty nuts the the original tongue was too short so what i ended up
02:15doing was i took a mid-top air force one tongue so it could go a little higher enough where
02:22it actually
02:22fits like composition wise what inspired me to combine the air force one and the cowboy boot
02:31it was simply just out of i just wanted them the original cowboy boots like let's keep this uh let's
02:39let's uh set this uh straight right now i'm not the inventor of the sneaker cowboy uh silhouette tony
02:47llama made a pair in the 80s they were hideous those they were they were basically called the rodeo
02:52cowboy boot and i'm like you know if we dumb it down a little bit by putting something that we
02:57all
02:58can relate to i think we might have something and it's the the cool thing about this whole thing is
03:03like i never photoshop i never do any mock-ups and air force ones if you think about it
03:08they they have this long history of people customizing them that's like a blank canvas
03:14but no one's customized them this way before i made them specifically just to wear them for myself
03:20and you know that's usually that's how i go about design i design for myself and then the world wants
03:27it you you may think that i have like this like crazy sneaker addiction but this is for all the
03:33people
03:33that think that i have like a bunch of shoes like you were to try to rob me oh
03:44you just have a bunch of half cowboy boots
03:56all-star weekend i had a random gig where i had to go to san fran and these were the
04:02shoes that i
04:03was wearing i was doing a whole bunch of content of me just like not even content but i was
04:07just
04:07like posting these to my story on my page and then angelo saw those he reached out to me through
04:13the dms
04:13and he was like yo i don't know if you know this but we're dropping our first awake fives like
04:18you know let's link up i want to show you them or whatever right and it was basically these guys
04:23and
04:23from that point on that's how i was able to uh to land that gig and it's literally just existing
04:30online
04:31post your work show your work you never know who's looking or what's dropping because i had no idea
04:37that those shoes were dropping when i first realized that i can make a living off of this
04:41i got laid off started collecting unemployment throughout that journey i'm like yo i gotta
04:46figure something out this can't be life i can't be going from like freelance gig to freelance gig and
04:52just like just be so disposable like whenever these people want that's when i first started doing
04:57the converse air force one mashup and that was just like more of like that was that was just more
05:04like a passion project i referenced this shoe uh earlier today this is like my first personal pair
05:13of uh the converse air force one mashup i wore these down to the ground this is a hand stitched
05:19shoe right
05:21this has over a hundred plus wears but they're still wearable so it's fashion there's function
05:32and there's something else there i don't know what it is but they're they're very special i ended
05:38up just like posting just one photo just like no caption nothing just and then there were people that
05:44were just like need need need need need and i'm like i got you i got all of you guys
05:50hold on a second
05:51let me see how much this is all gonna add up to once i started doing that i was just
05:56like yo
05:58the day rates in in these uh studios that i used to work they were like 200 bucks a day
06:04or maybe
06:06150. i'm like yo i'm making this at home making these damn shoes so let me start getting to work
06:23the initial reaction and mind you i'm the creator so i don't see the jokes right away you know what
06:31i mean i'm seeing this and i'm seeing this as like whoa but when i posted that first photo you
06:38know
06:38i think i was just like i probably went for a run and then when i went to go and
06:42look at my phone
06:43after i was just like why do i have a thousand comments what the what's going on over here and
06:48i'm like why is everybody making fun of this this is cool as hell the kind of boots batman would
06:53have
06:53if he was a black dude some red dead redemption in the trenches shoes
07:00but yeah that was like the first initial reaction was just like a lot of jokes they became a meme
07:07and it was just like i think my job here is done because if this shoe is going to become
07:14a meme like
07:15the first one that i saw i'm in business this is going to go all over the internet
07:23crazy enough uh my friend nick actually like gave these to me i woke up last sunday and i'm like
07:29yeah i need to do something for the dr parade i'm like yeah i need to you know do a
07:34dr theme that i'm
07:35like wait a minute i got it we'll just tape these guys up spray them and make them into some
07:41dr boots
07:42but then now they kind of look like a wrestling pair of boots which you know it's on brand with
07:48me
07:48you know i was having conversations with a lot of like my my wrestling friends if you will and i'm
07:55like yo who like this shoe needs to be on on someone in wrestling but i don't know who it
08:01is and
08:01you know they were throwing out some names and i'm just like no i don't i don't see it like
08:06i mean like
08:06that would be cool but like there's not going to be a moment and then i'm like wait a minute
08:10the red
08:11boot seth rollins wore those red boots he wears a lot of like wild stuff uh you know what i'm
08:17like
08:17seth rollins stylist his profile popped up right away my boy troy i was like let me reach out to
08:27him and it was like at three o'clock in the morning you know i'm just like getting ready for
08:30bed i i
08:31reached out to him i sent him like a photo i was like yeah you think seth is gonna rock
08:35would rock
08:35these just like that no hey how's it going i'm none of that intro shit i just went straight to
08:40the
08:40point he said hell yeah i was like all right i got some work to do i ain't even like
08:47i just went
08:48straight online i went on stock x bought the the red and white color of the months i already had
08:54the
08:54the red boot top a week later my phone is just blowing up i'm on the train just like
09:02i'm like yo what's going on i'm like yo he's wearing them seth rollins is wearing your boot
09:07and it was just like for such a small clip but that's all you need you know what i mean
09:11so he
09:11wore those shoes for for that moment like that was big and i grew up watching wrestling that
09:16shit was that was like that was like such a surreal moment for the shoe very easy very simple just
09:23got
09:24very complicated for seth rollins the first celeb to ever buy my work period and this is not even a
09:33shoe this is like a painting friend of my ex-girlfriend uh we're all like hanging out in
09:38in my apartment uptown and i had this painting of like this obscure like character with like this rug
09:44mustache and there was like a silhouette profile like big nose and like she's like oh my god that
09:49looks like drake's dad can i take a picture of it i'm like sure this is yaris sanchez by the
09:54way so
09:55she takes a photo of it sends it to him she hits me up the next day like yo drake
10:01wants to buy this
10:02painting off of you i was like drake who you're lying you must be lying i wanted to just gift
10:08it to
10:08him like i didn't know how to freaking price this thing wired me like two thousand bucks now i had
10:13two
10:14thousand dollars two thousand fifty dollars in my account i was like i'm ballin this is so good
10:20so yeah he was uh he was the first person to buy uh a piece do you have a list
10:27like off top of all
10:28the celebs that have worn the andy boot kaliuchi's bought a pair um and she also bought a pair for
10:34don tolliver jesse murph she coined this phrase called the snoot it's cute because it's like kind
10:40of like the a dog's nose but it's also a sneaker boot and like all her fans like like oh
10:45my god the
10:46snoot theophilus london trinidad james lebron james maluma omarion sissa how could i forget sissa
10:56dochi that's a lot of people yeah i wore these for a show with eminem in austin texas and because
11:05i was
11:05in texas i felt like i should lean into the country vibe but also it was a hip-hop show
11:11i also live on a
11:12ranch i have a pig chickens cows sheep and we're an actual working farm we have a vineyard we have
11:24tractors and the whole nine and then also my partner is a country singer and they're black the ones i
11:31chose because i also have a goth streak and so it kind of combines the three different worlds that i
11:37dabble in it's like streetwear but it's also country when i was watching i think it was like
11:44a vlad tv interview and they were talking about the the origin of hip-hop and you know all these
11:53brands
11:53that want to celebrate hip-hop now you can take two cents of take these two cents right but um
12:00the originator of the term hip-hop was created by no other than cowboy from the furious five and
12:09the term hip-hop came about when his friend came back from the military and he i don't know if
12:16he had
12:16like a missing leg and like a prosthetic leg or something like that i'm gonna massacre this story
12:21but like bear with me but when he was walking he's just like yo you over here you over here
12:28like
12:29walking all crazy just hip-hop hip-hop hip-hop so that's where that term came from so now
12:37for everyone that always like says like oh this ain't texas this is blah blah blah like
12:42all this like western stuff now this is a new york boot it's a very hip-hop it's not
12:48it has nothing to do with country music it has everything to do with country music too
13:02so
13:03you
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