Who Designed The Best Curry Sneakers? 100 Finalist Compete!

They shoot like, "I want this on a Foamposite." I go, "No." Yeah, that's not gonna work. Because we can't prep that. Or they have an idea that I think will transfer better on a different silhouette and I'll suggest that. And that's kind of part of the process. And that's kind of what our job is. Like their job is to have the idea. Our job is to make it happen.

Everything looks awesome. Yeah.

It's my first one.

This is sick.

It's crazy.

Oh yeah, how you pick?

One of my favorites was the Joker one.

This one? This one's nice. The Joker one?

Right there, top.

Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. Sparkly.

The bedazzle.

Somebody tried to get the branding in there. Part of the game. You gotta pick this one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What about the Rakuten and Canvas, the creator machine? What about that resonates with you?

It's just a fun creative opportunity to leverage a platform been in the sneaker game for a long time and bringing, you know, creatives together to just express themselves and be able to share their stories. And obviously the product that they create, the designs that they create, like, creating opportunity. And that's what I aim to do with the partnership we have. And obviously this is the best of everybody's worlds together. From Canvas, myself, Rakuten, being able to, you know, set the stage and then let the creators and designers do what they do. How important is the customization culture? It's extremely important 'cause it's all about storytelling. It's all about sharing a lens or a perspective that is unexpected, but it's crazy with a shoe, you know, how deep into a story you can go. Whether it's paying homage to somebody, whether it's talking about nature, whether it's talking about history, like whatever it could be. There's so many themes that can come to life through whatever design language. And I think it's just storytelling, it inspires people. And that's the best thing about the different mediums that you can, you know, have available to you. Sneakers being one of them.

Okay, so today, what do you look for in custom sneakers, right?

What grabs your eye first? Is it the design itself, the story behind the design, both of those?

It's a little bit of both. I think, I think the cool part about it is if you go look at all, you know, the shoes behind me, if you look at all of the entries and went through a pass one time and then you did it again, you probably notice just different things every time. That's the cool part about The creativity is every interaction you have with the shoe, you might get something different from it. I think maybe the first thing I think about is like the texture and the materials. That's something that stands out a lot to me. If you could take a shoe that, you know, was a certain material and then kind of remix it and, you know, the mixing and matching of materials and how the texturization of shoes, that to me stands out because it gives it that even more like 4D element almost.

Yeah.

And then you go into color, then you go into like, oh, what is the actual theme here? I am a fiend I have a keen eye for hand painting too. That's something that's really cool. I don't have that skill set at all. And so when I see it done at a high level, it, I enjoy that.

All right guys, so today you're going to meet la creme de la creme, okay? The best of the best, these 6 finalists, and you're gonna choose your favorite shoe design. I don't envy you. This job will be very difficult. And the winner is about to get 10 racks, $10,000, and their shoe is gonna be mass produced, and I have an exclusive sneaker drop available on Rakuten.com just for Rakuten members exclusively. Y'all ready?

Let's do it!

Okay, well, coming on down is Thierry Yonsenu.

Come on in! So I did this design with my son. My son did one shoe and I did one shoe, and I tried to put movement And I had a little surprise in the eye. You can light the light on. Oh!

Oh! Crazy!

It's like you are a superpower. You can light up.

Great work.

You did a big work.

Amazing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Place for everything in terms of the story and the different details. I just can't get over the seamless transition of different parts of the shoe from the tongue to the midsole part with how that paint just— if you look at it from really up close or from far away, to your point, like it looks super dynamic from far away, but up close— It's like, what?

Yeah.

Faith is a big part of my life as well, and just the beauty of nature is an everyday reminder of— Right. Of that relationship. And so the fact that you've, in the most unbelievable way on a shoe, brought in the, you know, the realness of the birds and the shading of the mountains and the sea, like, it's just— and then how it blends into the rest of the shoe, like, there's just a synergy here and just the flow that's unbelievable.

Doing that each little by little, and that's just how I do my work. I'm very versatile and I want to adapt each and every time that I do a sneaker. So that just shows that, you know, a lot of hard work and dedication goes into this, what I do. It's awesome. And the thing is, a lot of times with themes you can make it very, very literal, and what's good is he takes so many elements and just makes it something that, you know, if you know, you know kind of thing. But someone else would think that's a really dope looking shoe, and it works on both sides.

I'll put the cartoon cartoon of you on the front and doing your celebration because it's night-night, and that's what I tell my daughter when it's night-night time. I read her a story, so kind of gave that cartoon vibe. Wow.

But yeah.

To his point about there— it may look random, but there's nothing random on there. How many different call-outs you had about, you know, my world and things that, you know, I try to represent as, you know, inspiration and whatnot and things that are authentic to me like that, that means the world. The cool, like the Easter egg of this bullseye, I didn't even, I was looking at the shoe and you try, like you, your eye, you figure out where your eye's going and then you start to scan the whole shoe. I would've never caught that, which is a cool vibe of like being able to hide something in plain sight on a shoe like that.

It's dope.

And then obviously the nod to my dad and you know, the Cobra Kai colors.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't see that.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Once you get down into it.

The peel off.

That, yeah. Not the surprise. The peel off is crazy.

Not a built-in surprise.

Surprise door number one.

Wait, that's crazy.

Crazy!

Yes!

So this is the Kurdoodle. That's what I called it. It was inspired by creativity, that creative freedom that we all have as a child, as well as now as adults. When we're brainstorming ideas, the first thing we do is grab a piece of paper. So that's the theme of the background right here. I wanted people to feel like when they got this shoe that they would feel what it feels like to be a customizer as well. When I was younger, and we used to carry those little boxes for school.

Yes, yes.

And so I wanted to kind of create the design, like I redesigned the box myself. So this inside right here, this is my little figure right here, but I just wanted to put in there to have it.

Still got the same, yeah.

Same little design on there, and it says, "Enjoy the journey," on the inside, which is kind of like my mantra.

It's already unique, but you can make it still one of one with how you move it around. Even as you take these to school, you pass them around like trading cards back in the day. Like, yo, I'll trade you a Band-Aid for a piece of clay.

Right, right, yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Does that sound fair? Like, that part of it, just to, you're still storytelling at the end of the story. And every day you can start your day with a little bit of inspiration by moving it around. Yeah, and I love how it says, "You can do all things." 'Cause you definitely can.

Absolutely.

This is my favorite when I walked in. Just because of the idea of what it was when I saw the picture to what it actually was in person. And just the love detail. I'm not a big Predator fan, but the idea of bringing all of that theme into a shoe where, to your point, it's a dope shoe, and then if you're a super fan, you realize—

Right, you can geek out on it.

And then this— there was the other shoe, but this was, uh, the one that had the night-night thing. Like, that to me might be a little recency bias because it's in my world, but, uh, those are my First, my two favorite when I walked in. Yeah.

Seeing them all in person, getting them in hand and judging them and seeing all the things and materials and not materials, you know, some of the optical illusions were amazing. And you guys, all 6 of you really brought it home and you did really make the decision really, really hard for us. And on top of that storytelling, every single one of you, like there was ones where I knew for a fact, like, okay, I like this one. But once I heard the stories and, you know, emotion and things behind it, it made the decisions way tougher than I thought it was gonna be.

It's gonna be.

So congratulations to all you guys. You guys knocked it out of the park.

Like we said, we had to pick one, and it was hard. It was a very difficult process, and so I'm not gonna drag it on anymore, but our favorite out of the 6, and one that we feel like would be a kind of launching pad for some special work, we went with Mr. Art by Art. Whoo!

You're officially the winner, and you also receive $10,000.

Yes. 1,000 days in the making.

You know it—

the nights, the weekends, the belief that we could move the culture forward. To this moment in time. And with the corporate support of Rakuten and SC30 and Stephen, thank you so much for the belief and trust you've placed. And you guys for inspiring me to start Canvas. Because, Moshe, the work that you've done to pioneer and push this space forward, I do believe to the point that you've made so eloquently, beautifully this evening, this is the future of footwear. It is independent, it is creative, it is personal, it is storied. Mm-hmm. And it is yours.

Thank you.