Sneakers and jewels have been a part of urban fashion since Hip Hop’s inception, but only recently have the two worlds collided. Alan Kashi, a 26 year-old jeweler, who went from New York to Pittsburgh to make custom jewels had a heavy-hand if not pioneering, in this movement of weaving iced out medallions and Cuban links through laces.

The movement led Kashi to his own manufacturing plant, Kashi Kicks. Approaching 300 styles, many of which sold out, this thriving designer sneaker company has caught attention of everybody from George Clinton to DJ Khaled. Get a sense of this fashion phenomenon and the visionary behind as The Evil Collector kicks it with Kashi.

The Evil Collector: Tell me the story of how Kashi Kicks started…
Alan Kashi: Originally, Kashi was started as a jewelry company a long time ago by [my great-grandfather]. It was a jewelry company that started by making jewelry and going store to store when there were no cars, in Israel. As time progressed, he started to do better and better. My father was selling to stores in Israel, and they opened the first Kashi store in 1970. He had this dream to come to America and explode [here]. Like everybody who thinks that America is land of the free, he realized that there was a lot more to it. He worked hard. We started a few years ago, Kashi Jewelers. We opened up multiple stores. I came into the business with a big, huge store in Pittsburgh. We had stores all over Brooklyn, New York and Philly. Baltimore. Ohio. There were other names.

People were coming to me with all sorts of attachments that they wanted on their shoes. I would make name-plates and earrings, and they’d want them attached to their shoes to make it look right. Sneaker fiends are coming from all over the place.

TEC: How recently was this?
AK: This was like two years ago. People are coming to me, asking me to do [things]. I felt like I was doing the impossible – attaching watches to shoes. All types of crazy things. I was making all this stuff. There was one customer who I made a charm for. He bought a necklace to [hold it]. Somehow, he got into a fight with his girlfriend, who broke the necklace. He came into the store, mad. He wanted me take this charm and attach it to his sneaker, saying, “Put some hoops behind it, so I can [kick] it up her ass when I see her.” I was a little bit shook. After one thing led to another, I made that thing for him. A bunch of people wanted this. He had an $8,000 charm on his foot. On his foot! He didn’t do what he said he was gonna do. It was just a symbol of him being mad at his girl. It set the trend. Girls would come at me. Guys would. “Make this. Make that.”

TEC: How did that lead to manufacturing?
AK: At the same time all this was going down, I always felt like I wasn’t growing enough. Pittsburgh was my limit. I was hooking everybody up. I’m not trying to make 100% profit, I’m [settling] for 10, 20, 30% profit. I had a lot of customers from all over. New York, Philly, Miami. Slowly but surely, people were telling me, “I don’t see this everywhere.” I started wholesaling it. One guy in Ohio was buying a lot off. I was giving him credit. Everyone’s getting fronted. This guy defects on a payment. “I’m sorry friend, I don’t have the money. But my cousin has a partnership in China. We can give you a partnership with the factory.” This was a year and a half ago. I accepted. The next thing I knew, I was on an airplane to China. We just began. I just started to make all types of shoes. I started to make them. This was in July, 2006. I came back to America and signed up for Magic. I hadn’t even seen the product yet. That was the beginning of Kashi.

TEC: Are you still in the jewelry business, or have you taken this on full-swing?
AK: I’m very deeply inside the jewelry business. Every single day I’m inside my store trying to make moves. I have a very strong, big customer-base. I have street people going up to politicians coming to me.

TEC: There are people that have made careers out of being urban jewelers, whether Jacob The Jeweler or TV Johnny. From that initial customer, what do you think has made you so accessible to the street or urban customer-base?
AK: I’m not necessarily just urban. I feel like that like that [label] is centering towards a certain type of individual. Urban means city. That’s a bad word to use. I would say “designer.” I really don’t know. I feel there’s a very big culture, a big fashion, and I feel that there’s so much possibility. I try to see the invisible to do the impossible. If you look at sneakers, you will never see any shoes that look like mine. The reason is, I’m always thinking about what doesn’t exist. In the jewelry business, it’s the same thing. No one should have anything like the next person.

TEC: You have incredible distribution for these sneakers. That’s a difficult component. How have you achieved this in such a short amount of time?
AK: I will tell you one thing: it was not that easy, albeit a short amount of time. It just takes a lot of dedication and a lot of focus. I was looking at HipHopDX.com on Alexa, and you guys are within the Top 5,000. I can only tell you in that the reason you guys are in that position is because you’re dedicated. I’m not gonna lie to you. It was not easy. I spent the last year and a half inside my house. I barely go out. I might’ve got out 10 times in the last year and a half. The next city, the next store, the next spot. I don’t stop. I keep pushing.

TEC: What does your father think of the direction you’ve taken with the family business?
AK: My father is my idol. The one thing my father tells me everyday, “bigger, better, stronger.” That inspires me. That’s the truth. Everything we do can be beaten. I look at [success] the same way. I might have 10,000 days left in my life. I need to do this.

TEC: Would you say you started the jewelry on sneakers movement?
AK: You know what? That’s a very good, good, good question. I really don’t know how to answer that question ‘cause I haven’t done that much research to see. I believe so, but I’m not really sure, ‘cause you never know. For what I’m doing, and what I see, I think we started something very big.

TEC: What style of Kashi Kicks is the most popular right now?
AK: As everyday goes by, I get amazed by what people love. Every single style is crazy. We have The Timeless Collection, with the watches on it. We have The AK Classics, that is just all glittered out and crazy and colorful. We have The Liberace Collection, with the piano keys. I’m noticing that a lot of producers are getting hip to that. We sold out of it in two weeks. 4,000 pairs of shoes in eight and a half days. I don’t even have one pair left.

TEC: Hip Hop is so homophobic. Who’s decision was it to align with Liberace?
AK: I was in my second trade shows. Everything that I do, with the little money I have, I always try to impress people. When I did this little booth in this big show, the Liberace Foundation in Las Vegas came to me and saw the shoes. They almost had a heart attack, these people. They were so impressed. I thought to myself, “Liberace might’ve been gay, but so what? It’s not a big deal.” A lot of people are homophobic and so forth; we need to respect everybody. This is who we are.

TEC: Was it named Liberace before you met them?
AK: I made a collaboration with them. Together. They gave me the right to even be allowed to put Liberace on the shoe. It was a magnificent opportunity. As much as you might say that rappers are [homophobic], even 50 Cent, you’ll hear him talk about Liberace. I think it was “Stunt 101.”

TEC: Or “California Love.”
AK: Liberace was the king of bling. He loved his shine.

TEC: How many shoe models are there in all?
AK: Just yesterday, one of my distributors in Australia has a meeting with Foot Locker Australia. I just realized yesterday, when I was doing inventory, that I sent to Foot Locker 112 new styles of shoes. 112 new styles, just for the spring season! I was baffled. Right now, in shoes, I might’ve done 150-200 styles already. A lot of then are special make-ups that I do for certain countries or special people. I just started to make matching purses and belts for the ladies too. We’re getting these to a lot of places, in America starting this month.

TEC: How big is your staff?
AK: I design every single shoe by myself. Sometimes I have help from others, just to ask them their response, or what they think. Generally, someone just hits me with an idea. When I come home, I’ll draw it. I have very good people who can map out whatever I say. For example, I have a shoe that’s Style #21, and it has red cow print and brown brick print on it. I was walking down the street and I saw a milk ad and I saw a cow for the milk ad on a brick wall. I said, “Wow, how hot would it be if I made a shoe that had cow print and brick on it?” I don’t what hit me. It was a hit though.

TEC: Have you had any notable Hip Hop people support the shoes?
AK: There is a whole big roster. NYCE from Mobb Deep. DJ Scream. DJ Woogie of Shadyville and G-Unit. Hot Rod from G-Unit. George Clinton. Shock G. Flavor Flav. It’s a long roster. I saw MIMS and DJ Khaled wearing my shoes. One of the things that we started now is, I started a music entertainment company. Fashion goes with music very closely. We have our first rapper, Rocky Fontaine. He’s originally from Philly, but lives in Atlanta.

TEC: Where can our consumers buy?
AK: We are in 250 stores. The best thing they can do is log into Kashi.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 6:10 pm and is filed under collaborations, Fashion, Interview, Accessories, Women, Shoes, Men, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.