LaToya Kamara Manley is the worldwide footwear product director for Jordan Girls’s at Nike. In her position, she seeks out client insights to create a line that’s devoted to constructing Jordan Girls’s model footprint for girls. She works to make sure that merchandise are related, match the look that the patron is attempting to create, and vibe with what the patron desires to current to the general public.
The place did your love for sneakers come from?
I’m from Portland, Oregon, born and raised, and when you’re accustomed to Portland it’s the birthplace of Nike. I used to be raised basically in Nike city, so I’ve at all times had a love of sneakers. That was expounded by having a love of vogue, music, and Black tradition, and desirous to be part of the group that exists inside sneaker tradition.
I grew up on this business, and it’s at all times been part of who I’m. I’ve at all times been very obsessed with ladies particularly within the sneaker tradition, as a result of I’m sufficiently old the place you used to Google ladies and sneakers, and you will discover one lady carrying Air Drive Ones in a bikini, and that illustration wasn’t significant sufficient for me, so I knew that I wished to be part of this business and to make change on this business.
What does your position at Jordan Girls’s contain?
I’m within the way of life house, so we’re taking a look at our big selection of shoppers which consists of women going to work, ladies being fly on the membership, and ladies who have to sneakers for the daytime. We’re not essentially desirous about one explicit athlete or asset, we actually strive to take a look at serving hundreds of thousands of shoppers ideally.
We do have ways in which we pinpoint the place we all know it is a sharp place the place we are able to get after and it’ll possibly affect the broader scheme of {the marketplace}, however we spend loads of time doing loads of analysis and assembly with lots of people to assemble as a lot as we are able to, after which deliver it into extra of a slender scope.
How have ladies within the sneaker tradition advanced through the years?
It has modified the sport. There was a time when ladies had been carrying loads of sneakers on Saturday or Sunday, and she or he’d say “It’s my shoe that I run errands in or I’m going to the health club in.” Now it’s simply part of her day by day put on. It’s part of her apparel the place it’s acceptable, and it’s modern to put on sneakers with no matter you need to put on them with. It doesn’t have to simply be pants and sweats, it may be something.
I feel it took some time for girls to develop their very own fashion round how one can put on sneakers. Now I see so many ladies carrying them with fits attire and at extra fancy occasions.
