“When I create, I feel like a child,” said Salehe Bembury, a footwear designer who lives in New York. “When we’re kids, we’re able to express ourselves with way more color.”
Bembury, 40, is a regular presence at fashion shows around the world, where he often stands out for what might be considered eccentric workwear: a balance of vibrancy and utility that has started to gain more traction in men’s wear in recent years. The quarter-zip work shirt he was wearing when I stopped him on the street in Copenhagen, for example, was artfully speckled with splotches of paint. He paired it with altered carpenter trousers — instead of a hammer loop and tool pocket, they were padded on the sides — creating the kind of uniform that would have been considered too blue-collar for a fashion week audience not that long ago. (To say nothing of his Oakley sunglasses.)
On a recent Monday in August, he explained that he preferred having few rules when it came to dressing himself. “Outside of my job, I really don’t notice trend because I’m kind of like on my own wave,” he said. Standing in a pair of sneakers he created for his brand, Spunge, Bembury recalled discovering his love of designing shoes — and his early inspirations. “It was this combination of ’90s hip-hop and basketball,” he said. “It was the emotion that footwear left me with, the same way that someone puts on a pair of heels and feels a little bit sexier. Sneakers made me feel cooler. They made me feel like I could fly, like a superhero.”
What shoes did he pack for the trip to Copenhagen? “Four pairs,” he said. “Three pairs of Spunge and one pair of Pumas.”
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