美国国家公共电台 NPR How D'Wayne Edwards Became A Sneaker Legend

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Lots of industries acknowledge they have a diversity problem. Maybe it's with age or gender¹ or race. Our Planet Money podcast wondered, how exactly does an industry begin to change itself? And reporter Kenny Malone says the answer is on your feet.

KENNY MALONE, BYLINE²: D'Wayne Edwards was just out of high school - this was in the '80s - and managed to get a job at LA Gear, the sneaker company, which was great.

D'WAYNE EDWARDS: But I'm in the accounts payable³ department, just filing papers.

MALONE: Which was not great because sneaker design was his dream job.

EDWARDS: And so I start asking around. And everyone's saying, well, you have to go to design school, and you have to do this. You have to do that.

MALONE: Edwards couldn't afford the normal, expensive paths to shoe design. But he did notice that the LA Gear company had these wooden suggestion boxes. And he thought, you know what? While I'm here, what the heck?

EDWARDS: So my suggestion was, hire me as a footwear designer. So I would - every morning before I started my filing-papers job, I would put a sketch⁴ in the box. So I did that for six months.

MALONE: He had no idea, but somebody was looking at these sneaker sketches⁵.

ROBERT GREENBERG: The line work was very trendy, a little futuristic-looking.

MALONE: This is Robert Greenberg, president of LA Gear at the time.

GREENBERG: D'Wayne's talent is to create what does not exist. You know you go to those car shows and they show the futuristic cars?

MALONE: Yeah.

GREENBERG: That's what he did.

MALONE: Greenberg called Edwards into his office.

EDWARDS: And he had all 180 sketches on his desk. And he was like...

GREENBERG: Here, come in, and sit down. And let's talk.

EDWARDS: I've heard you're the one that's been putting these (laughter) sketches in the box.

GREENBERG: You know, look at this - looks nice. What do you want to do?

EDWARDS: What do you want me to do with these things? You know, did you go to design school? What's up? And I was like, well, no, I just graduated from Inglewood High School about seven months ago. And he was like, well, you have talent, and I like your ambition. And I'm going to offer you a entry-level design job if you want to take it.

MALONE: And that is the story of how D'Wayne Edwards became one of the first black designers in the sneaker industry. His career skyrocketed from there. Eventually he became the lead designer at Nike for the Air Jordan brand. But Edwards always wondered. Why did a kid like him even need this suggestion box miracle to launch his career in the first place? And so about 10 years ago, he quit his dream job to build a new way to launch careers. He built one of the first sneaker design schools.

EDWARDS: You see that white shoe with the navy midsole on the wall right there?

MALONE: Edwards is surrounded by about eight students trying to explain to them how sneaker color blocking can make a shoe stand out even from across the room.

EDWARDS: That's why blocking's important. And it started on basketball courts.

MALONE: The Pensole Footwear Design Academy in Portland, Ore., is some hybrid⁶ of a vocational school, a design college and an apprenticeship⁷.

EDWARDS: But because I wasn't able to go to school, I want to figure out a way to make it free so kids like me don't get lost.

MALONE: So Edwards gets sneaker companies to fund scholarships for many students, and the sneaker companies get this pipeline⁸ of undiscovered talent.

EDWARDS: So the other thing that we - oh, Precious.

MALONE: Almost on cue, one of Edwards' first students shows up to say hi.

EDWARDS: Precious is an alumni. She work at Jordan now. How are you doing?

PRECIOUS HANNAH: I'm good.

MALONE: Precious Hannah now works at Nike and still comes back as a mentor⁹.

HANNAH: So I think it's very important for others to understand, like, you know, you don't have to go to this prestige school just to understand something. You could come somewhere where someone understands how to do things and just, like, give you the knowledge like D'Wayne gave me.

MALONE: In recruiting for the school, Edwards says he makes a special effort to find students who do not look like the industry looks right now. And there aren't great statistics about diversity in the footwear design field, but the number of non-white designers does seem to be growing, and a big part of that is the Pensole Academy.

EDWARDS: Real quick, I'll just show you a couple of things.

MALONE: Yeah, sure.

EDWARDS: So we keep a...

MALONE: Edwards walks over to a wall covered in different companies' shoeboxes.

EDWARDS: And we put shoeboxes up on the wall when they get jobs at different places, for whatever said company...

MALONE: Every single one of these is a job.

EDWARDS: Yeah.

MALONE: One, two, three, four, five, six.

I'll save you the counting. It's more than 300 graduates who've wound up working at footwear companies.

EDWARDS: All the companies have a diversity agenda. Like, oh, we need more people of color. Oh, we need this. We need that. So in a lot of ways, with me starting this is to show the industry, this is what happens when you actually focus in on something.

MALONE: Kenny Malone, NPR News.

1 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 payable   

adj.可付的，应付的，有利益的

参考例句：

• This check is payable on demand.这是一张见票即付的支票。
• No tax is payable on these earnings.这些收入不须交税。

4 sketch   

n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述

参考例句：

• My sister often goes into the country to sketch. 我姐姐常到乡间去写生。
• I will send you a slight sketch of the house.我将给你寄去房屋的草图。

5 sketches   

n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概

参考例句：

• The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
• You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

7 apprenticeship   

n.学徒身份；学徒期

参考例句：

• She was in the second year of her apprenticeship as a carpenter. 她当木工学徒已是第二年了。
• He served his apprenticeship with Bob. 他跟鲍勃当学徒。

8 pipeline   

n.管道，管线

参考例句：

• The pipeline supplies Jordan with 15 per cent of its crude oil.该管道供给约旦15%的原油。
• A single pipeline serves all the houses with water.一条单管路给所有的房子供水。

9 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。