Jazerai Allen-Lord is a multi-hyphenate artistic, with deep roots in sneaker and road tradition. She focuses on storytelling via model technique and design. Allen-Lord’s Reebok shoe launched in 2019 is offered out and has been acquired for the Bata Footwear Museum’s archive of Black designers.
Allen-Lord can also be the CEO and founding father of True to Measurement, a sneaker-based platform that provides individuals of shade the possibility to inform their tales, whereas additionally serving to their companies develop and develop.
How did you start your sneaker journey?
It was so pure. I used to be a little bit woman who thought that ultimately I’d go to journalism college and have a column in {a magazine}. After I graduated school, print died that 12 months. So I entered advertising and marketing, and I labored at what’s now often called the Woman Scouts of Los Angeles, however I used to be working within the Valley at the moment and dealing on advertising and marketing for younger ladies.
It began with me posting my pure photographs of myself on Tumblr, which included an image of me getting married in a pair of Nike de la Sol highs beneath my gown. That image went Tumblr viral, and hastily the founding father of Kicksonfire despatched me a message and he requested me if I used to be a author. I stated “sure,” after which he stated, “Do you want sneakers?” I stated “sure,” after which he requested, “Do you wish to write for this factor referred to as a weblog?” I’m like, “What’s a weblog” and he instructed me, and the subsequent day, I used to be writing about sneakers.
What are some adjustments that you’ve seen with ladies being concerned in sneaker tradition?
One of many greater adjustments that I’ve seen throughout the board is extra type inclusivity. Ladies having the ability to work on males’s merchandise, and for girls or males providing that unisex strategy, I feel that that’s actually vital. The opposite factor is having a extra various voice and never simply range in appears to be like, however the range of thought on the forefront of sneaker tradition. We’ve some work to get there, however after I was developing, it was White ladies and perhaps one basketball participant right here or there. In the present day we’ve got designers, we’ve got stylists, we’ve got ladies like me, we’ve got entrepreneurs like Kimberly Drew working in arts, and there are such a lot of totally different ladies which have hero voices in sneaker tradition at the moment that don’t simply play sports activities, or are a mother. For thus lengthy they solely noticed ladies in three classes … a younger woman, a mother or an athlete, and ladies are a lot greater than that. What we carry to the desk is infinite.
