For the Record | Kyle Pulli

2 Comments / May 05.09 / For the Record / by Worthington

For the Record is The Steel Crew’s series of dialogue with leaders and up-and-comers in the fashion, arts, and entertainment industries. We are the inquiring minds, and we want to know more…don’t you?

This edition for For the Record is with VP of Design for Pony, Kyle Pulli. Pony is engineering its own resurrection, drawing from its roots in 1970s New York to reach out to a brand new audience while simultaneously reminding those who remember Pony that they’re back in a big way.

At the forefront of this resurgence is Kyle Pulli, former designer at adidas and a seriously cool guy. I was just expecting another good interview, but Kyle opened up about his own personal design philosophies, the history and innovation that’s driving Pony today, the struggles and advantages of working for a smaller company, and what inspires him to continue designing. It ended up being more of an actual conversation than an interview (and the length reflects that), but I got some insight on the process and the industry that I never thought I would get. For anyone as obsessed with sneakers and design as much as I am, it’s a must-read.

Check out our full interview with Kyle after the jump.

The Steel Closet: I guess the first thing that I wanted to talk about was…I read your interview with Hypebeast.com and I really enjoyed that. I think it told a lot of people about how Pony was coming back up and I guess didn’t really wanna go and do the same questions again. So I was wondering if it was cool if we talked about the design process and the future of Pony stuff?

Kyle Pulli: Oh, for sure. Yeah, no problem.

TSC: Okay. So did you decide to work for Pony or did someone approach you to do design for Pony, and what did you think when you first signed on and came on board?

KP: Well, to digress a little bit, my background was with Adidas for almost ten years, and I had a great, great career there, did a lot of good things, took advantage of a lot of opportunities that came my way. The whole Pony thing kind of fell in my lap…at the time I was not looking…I wasn’t looking to jump ship or, you know, looking for a new opportunity with a company or anything, it just kind of fell in my lap. I was contacted, and essentially I came down and interviewed…

For those people that remember Pony, you know what I mean, even if the brand wasn’t resurrected, anytime someone mentions Pony…People have a fond memory of it, their eyes light up. I was really just curious to see what the story was, you know? Who was bringing the brand back, and what was the investment strategy, long term goals and all that. So, basically from a design standpoint, I had the opportunity to come down and have free range, revamping Pony, not only in aesthetic, but brand direction and design direction and the whole ideology of creative [design] for the brand…that only comes around probably once in a lifetime for a designer, for a recognizable brand, to be in a situation where they’re trying to almost create kind of a renaissance, and they need some guidance, they need someone to take the reigns and lead the ship…that was the main, determining factor for me, to say, “Hey, this is such a good opportunity that I can’t pass it up.”

Like I said, having carte blanche with a brand as visible as Pony is kind of like, wow, that’s such a huge opportunity that I had to take advantage of it. And you know, when I left Adidas, there wasn’t any animosity or anything like that, it was just too big of an opportunity to let pass by.

TSC: For sure. That segues into my next question…I know that you did a lot of high-profile pro-model stuff like the T-Macs and [Kevin Garnett] signature stuff…I was wondering, is there any sort of design philosophy, or stuff that you carry over from the big-time pro-model sneakers to what you’re doing with Pony? I know that there’s the Moss pro-model range and then there’s all the basketball performance stuff, the Vintage and the Play wear…I was wondering what you carried over in terms of design and performance?

KP: I kind of built my reputation and career undoubtedly in performance, I didn’t only work with the ball, I made my name through the basketball category [but] I worked with professional football athletes, professional baseball athletes, and just had a pretty solid background in performance. I think that the main thing is that with Adidas…their passion for sport, it’s what drives them, and…their overt direction is based around technology. I’ll say performance as well, but a company of that stature, it’s really about technologies and coming up with different technologies to help drive a brand initiative and brand campaign and all that. I think one of the biggest things is that, rather than saying, “Okay, I’m coming from performance background at probably one of the most performance-driven companies with regards to footwear”…that’s a given, you know? Designing performance shoes, my philosophy is always solving problems, solving issues, around what the athlete needs. I feel like what some of the issues were at adidas were a lot of times they would compromise performance based on this willingness to keep pushing technologies.

TSC: Oh, I see, I see.

KP: A lot of times, technology doesn’t mean that the shoe performs any better. It just means you’ve come up with some gadget or gimmick that you can sell an idea on, right? As a designer, there’s probably five hundred different ways I could come up with in my head to solve a cushioning solution. Or there’s five hundred different ways to solve a weight issue on a shoe, you know? If I had to make a shoe lightweight, there’s so many different avenues that you can take, and I think that there’s…there’s kind of this ultra-technical, technology-based way, and then there’s actually like a soft-tech or low-tech approach. I think the biggest change that I’ve done is…I’m all about “no gimmicks”, you know what I mean. That’s one thing I learned at adidas, with all of the technologies that came up it was just kind of a lot of issues that arose with that, because [of] the technicality…and you gotta make sure that the technology communicates an idea even though it might not work.

All I was saying is, is really just getting back to a lot of shoe-making. With my expertise in performance, I know how to make a shoe perform around athletes’ needs, so I’m taking a really simple-sided approach, almost something that’s diametrically opposed to adidas, where they actually complicate things a little bit, and they have to come up with acronyms for technologies and all that.

We just came up with performance features and benefits philosophy called “Pony Elements”…

TSC: Mmmhmm, I saw those on the website.

KP: Yeah, and the premise around that is simple. It doesn’t limit us to build shoes that will perform to whatever level we need them to perform at. With the other brands, they have X amount of advertising dollars, let’s say, where they have to launch a technology…and let’s say that they launch it in a running category first or basketball. Well they have to carry that technology across, horizontally, to make sense for the brand. If they’re gonna spend $20 million to advertise this new gadget, well, you wanna see the gadget start evolving in every category. Well the gadget might only work…it might only be developed or the intention for it was a running technology, so it performs really well, let’s say on a running shoe because it’s a linear motion but as soon as you put that gadget in a basketball shoe, the movements are different. So it might actually inhibit performance.

Pony’s Elements system, which allows them to construct shoes with unique attributes at an efficient scale.

TSC: But because it’s a new technology, and something that they feel that they can sell, that’s what they’re trying to push.

KP: Yes, they maximize, exactly. The good news is…well, good and bad (laughs) is that we don’t have a large marketing budget. You’re not gonna see these $10 million ads on TV or anything. It really comes down to, hey, if we’re gonna build shoes, they HAVE to perform, they HAVE to be more of an honest approach to performance, and [be] more intuitive. The consumer has to know, right off the bat, what the shoe is for, and what are the attributes built in to this shoe that supply the needs for what they’re going to be doing. They don’t need a 20-minute explanation of how this technology works, they just need to know how it’s going to help them. So that’s what Pony Elements is all about, it’s kind of like customizing. What does this shoe need? Well it needs to be light, it needs to be flexible, let’s say it needs to be more supportive on the lateral side, it needs to have a couple different densities of cushioning. We can engineer each shoe based around these elements. We don’t have to worry about, “Well, we have this all-encompassing technology that we have to stick in each category.” So just the formula and the model that’s set up, it just allows us to be more honest when we’re building shoes. You only put in the shoe what you need. It’s almost an understated approach.

TSC:You’re not trying to fix what ain’t broke, right?

KP: Yeah, and we think there’s proof that low-tech things create value as well. I think that there’s almost a paradigm shift in the market where you used to see these big gadgets on shoes, and that used to mean, “Wow, that’s gotta be a $100+ shoe”. But what you’re seeing is that [those] same gadgets are on $50 shoes now. So it’s almost like an inverse value when you see a lot of plastic componentry on shoes…it doesn’t always equate to value to the customer. I think Nike Free and those kind of products are perfect examples of there’s not a lot of tech involved, it’s just a very simple and understandable concept that the consumer understands right away, and there’s value in that. So we’re redefining what value is within performance. And that’s the underlying thing around Pony Elements, it’s just simplifying, it’s more intuitive, it doesn’t provide any restrictions for us to build the best performing product for that price.

TSC:Yeah, I definitely see what you’re saying. I remember in the early 2000s, Nike was pushing Shox, like really really big time, and it was all over their running and their basketball lines. But in the past couple years you see it on almost none of their shoes, and you have to kind of wonder, they spent all that money advertising it, and marketing it, and researching it or whatever but now it’s almost nowhere to be found. It’s only five years later or something, you know?

KP: Yeah, and a perfect example that Shox started out as a running technology, and they put it in basketball and failed miserably. They didn’t perform and had major problems in basketball, and that’s why at the end of the day they pulled them out, they stopped making them in basketball, because it just didn’t make much sense.

TSC: I remember, I used to have a pair of them to play basketball in, and they were a lot heavier than you felt like they should be…and with lateral movements, since the edges weren’t kind of rounded or contoured, you always kind of…it never really happened, but you felt like the columns might catch on the asphalt or whatever. I totally get what you’re saying with going back to just what works, and not just pushing out whatever sells.

KP: And focus on solving problems. “What’s the problem?”…you know, each time we design a shoe for a specific use, within performance, whether it’s basketball or baseball or football, we focus on what the shoe needs to do, and then what we do is we come up with solutions that are based on these Elements. It’s great, because it’s like a menu, it becomes a menu at that point, we just decide right off the bat, “We’ll have this, this and this” and you don’t compromise at the end of the day the performance of it. It allows you a little bit more freedom to build ideas and explore ideas within those elements.

TSC: Yeah, that sounds great. When you sit down with your team to design, whether it’s part of the Vintage line or whether it’s part of the Performance line for an athlete, how do you reconcile personal design preferences with what you think consumers will buy, and all the while staying true to the Pony design heritage?

KP: Well I think the biggest thing…I think it’s funny, because the biggest thing that any company with heritage or authenticity has going for them is THAT heritage. They’ve been around, they’ve done some things, they have built-in credibility almost. The first and the most obvious thing I’ve done is…I work for Pony; the logo is a Chevron, we’re gonna keep sticking the chevron in the same, you know, 99% the same spot on our shoes until people start recognizing and remembering. You know, “Wow, that’s a Pony shoe.” So the branding to me is the first and foremost way to be consistent, from design language.

There’s companies like Nike..and I always compare Nike and Adidas. Adidas has the three stripes, and they seem to have the most success when they don’t mess with the three stripes – they keep them in the same spot.

Nike has more of a stamp logo; they can move that Swoosh around anywhere. I feel like, [with] the Pony Brand, we’re proud of the Chevron, so ultimately the design language on every shoe works around the Chevron, towards the Chevron. The Chevron in fact is a supportive shape, in its own right – as a logo, as a derivative of creating support around the collar. So if you look at a lot of the designs that we create, it’s very complementary. Anything we do is built to support the chevron and not contradict it or create any sort of counterbalance with it.

In terms of design language…there’s two ways that you can approach aesthetics. You can start with saying, “Oh for this season we’re gonna [do this]…we’re inspired by X, Y, and Z; we’re gonna start incorporating that into the shoes. And that’s great…[but] I don’t ever do that. I always start with what the functional inspiration is. If it’s a performance shoe – and even if it’s a vintage shoe – there’s gotta be a functional story. If it goes on your foot and you’re wearing it around, there’s gotta be some sort of story that makes sense for the shoe. I feel like…one of things I’m really good at is doing unique constructions, always pushing the envelope. I always try combining two things that maybe haven’t been used before together, and that allows me to create something new. When you kind of recycle things that have been done already, it’s kind of like, “garbage in, garbage out.” I feel like a lot of the philosophy I have is around juxtaposition, it’s about saying, “You know what, we’re gonna combine this idea and this idea, and we’re gonna make them work in unison.”

I think that’s what’s actually allowed us to create some cool “newness”, and so far in the last year, just creating combinations of constructions with unique materials, materials that we normally wouldn’t see together. But the way that we use them, it creates a versatility to the shoe. But ultimately, again, when you take a look at our wall of shoes, they all have Chevrons on them, the design language is very similar, and that’s actually an advantage, I think, for a company of our size. Basically I have two guys I work with, below me, and it’s an advantage…there’s more work, but it’s an advantage to make sure and ensure a consistency that’s carried through the design process all the way through. From the infancy of the design all the way through to the production of the design. That’s what we’ve been able to accomplish.

A lot of times, when you have 30 designers…

TSC: I can imagine that being a mess, you know.

KP: It’s just that you have so many different interpretations. The beauty of our situation is that it’s very streamlined, it’s very focused…I do have a specific aesthetic that I feel is right for Pony. It’s all about this whole notion of “strangely familiar”…I use that phrase because we are resurrecting a brand, we are not a new brand. It’s very, very important that we have links to our past. So even if you see some of the new stuff that we’re doing, there’s still this undertone that, “Wow, I’ve seen that shoe before from that brand” or “I can see that they pulled inspiration from some shoe in the past.” We have an extensive archive that we pull from all the time.

Just to give you an example, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Feed the Cat shoe, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, it’s a mid-cut…that’s one of our best selling shoes right now. And a lot of it is, it’s basically the Shooter, it’s an old basketball canvas shoe that we had, it was called the Shooter. I just did a unique, different construction on vulcanized product, there’s vulcanized rubber running up the eyerow, and it’s become a signature element on that style of shoe that gives us our signature as a brand rather than…you know, there’s a lot of the same silhouettes, that are very similar to that look. Just by having that construction method that we came up with, it allows us a different point of view on that look.

The Feed The Cat program is the fuel for Pony’s resurgent fire. A classic silhouette, more and more interesting combinations of materials and colorways, and an attractive price point – what’s not to like?

TSC:Yeah, that’s kind of the feeling that I got when I was looking through the pictures of the line and the kind of shoes you guys have available…it’s like, “Yeah, those are the kind of shoes that my cousin would’ve rocked back in the day”. Everyone gets that kind of nostalgic feeling, and it works really well with what you guys are doing.

KP: Part of that language is creating this intuitive, minimalistic approach to footwear. That’s one thing we always do, weather it’s performance or lifestyle…very intuitive, minimalistic, not confusing, and unexpected. I talked about the whole juxtaposition…contrasting fabrics to emphasize uniqueness with the constructions we do. Creating a holistic vibe too…timeless, as well. Some of the best shoes, the ones that are classified as timeless…there are certain shoes that never go out of style, and we like to have a little bit of that. Some things are gonna go extreme, but in the majority of our line, we like to create a strong wearability and have timeless attributes.

TSC: Speaking of that…there’s places in the industry that you’ll look to for inspiration, but are there any things that you look at that are outside of the norm for inspiration? When you’re designing shoes or trying to “get into the mode”…is there any artwork or music or things like that that get your juices going?

KP: Oh, for sure. I think when you’re at some of the larger companies, because everyone says that they don’t watch what everyone else is doing – but they do. I think they have to. Because fiscally, they’re competing for business. One advantage we have is we’re not really competing with anyone directly for business…and we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought we were. I mean, we’re just not at that scale yet. So the advantage is that we can explore, and we can try things, and we can innovate…we focus on innovation every day. Because we don’t have this consistent business that we need to anniversary, and I think it’s funny because with the downturn in the economic situation going on right now, you get a lot of the bigger companies [scaling] back a little bit, and they hold on to keep that business that they already have, keeping it going.

We’re the opposite, we just need to innovate every day and come up with some cool new stuff. I don’t necessarily look at the footwear industry…I mean from time to time I see what other brands are doing, but if I take inspiration from footwear I’m always looking at more of the high-end dress shoe industry if I look at footwear. It’s so hard to create value and simplicity, and I think that dress shoes are a perfect example of that. There’s not a lot of pieces or things going on on a dress shoe. But what makes the perceived value is the shape of the shoe, the materials…maybe that one material that they use on the shoe, or that one stitch detail…it’s like the bare minimum. It’s, “How do you take away to add value”. That’s a very difficult concept, especially in the athletic industry where you’re always adding. You’re always thinking, “Oh, we gotta add more stuff to the shoe to add value”. That’s something that I appreciate more with the high-end dress shoe, they create value with having less.

TSC: Like addition by subtraction.

KP: Yeah, exactly. I’m a big furniture lover. A lot of the inspiration I pull from is furniture design, the high-end furniture design companies …you know, if I ever got out of footwear, I’d probably love to design furniture. Always taking inspiration from them, just their use of textiles, and just the fact that there are structural elements at a different scale. And I think with that point architecture too, I’m always looking at architecture from a global scale. Looking at some of the different regions throughout some of the areas of different countries that are making a resurgence…I think Berlin is a perfect example. There’s so many amazing buildings and structures going up there because people are commissioning top architects to create something to revitalize that area. It’s very inspiring when you see some of the top architecture going on. I think furniture and architecture are definitely two areas I look to for inspiration constantly.

TSC: I really wish that I could say that I could design shoes after looking at a couch, that’s amazing. But apparently, I’m not quite as talented as you, so…

So the next question that I had to ask is, are there any new sneakers, or any new lines coming out from Pony that you’re particularly excited about? That you just can’t wait until it gets out and people see it?

KP: Yeah…we have two divisions going on, we have our performance division, we have our lifestyle division. In lifestyle we have our Vintage and we also have…

TSC: Play?

KP: …yeah, Play, and our staple in there is the Feed the Cat program, which has driven everything. So we’re going to continue to evolve those stories through there. We actually have some amazing performance product coming out, in 2010, that I’m just super geeked on because, again, I have the ability just to create and innovate without many layers of bureaucracy or limitations to deal with. That was something I had to deal with at the bigger brands, because if you’re gonna rock the boat, its a bigger issue. And if you’re going to come up with something that’s gonna redefine something, it’s gonna have to go through so many layers above you. We’re still at that infant stage where I’m doing that [rocking the boat] daily. Coming up with things, we have the opportunity to create and innovate.

So we have a pretty innovative basketball shoe coming out next year, and our lifestyle stuff is improving continually, pushing the thematic stories…we tell stories in terms of the lifestyle stuff through materials and constructions and I think we’re really good at that. I think that’s what’s really put us on the map so far, it’s resonating really well with the consumer…and at the end of the day, lifestyle is a much hotter category than performance.

Now with that said, performance will come back, for sure, and some of the things we’re working on now, we hope to be at the forefront when the pendulum swings back in that direction. I think 2010 is really going to be the year for us to really launch performance at the level that we think we can. We’ve just got some really cool, unique construction things that it’s gonna take more brand exposure for people to catch on.

Part of the problem we’ve had is that we’ve had really cool, innovative product [that] we’ve been ahead of the game on. We’ve come out with things over a year ahead of the competition, but because we are a new brand and still getting into the mix, we’re not out there, we’re not that visible, it’s been tough for that stuff to stick.

TSC: Yeah, I’m a huge fan of the 5oz, that was one of the things that I was looking at a lot when I was on the website the other day. I was looking at that and if I’m looking at it correctly, it’s supposed to be worn without socks right? It’s like a trainer?

KP: Correct. And that is THE shoe that we were way ahead of the game on. Puma just came out with a shoe called the Lift, and it’s built around the same premise, but they had a decent sized marketing budget, and they partnered with Finishline and some of these other accounts…but our construction, we had it first, it’s super innovative, it’s the lightest shoe you’ll ever wear, you wear it without socks. This thing is just so cool and different, it’s just that we weren’t visible…we’re whispering right now, we’re not shouting.

TSC: Is it really five ounces? I mean, I haven’t seem them in stores, but it would be cool to try on a pair. Are they really that light?

KP: They are. They’re literally five ounces.

One of my favorite Pony designs, the 5oz stays true to its name…it weighs literally five ounces. It was designed to be worn without socks, and the generous ventilation details combined with the anti-microbial treatment to fight foot funk makes it a great choice for the summertime.

TSC:That’s really cool. Those are seriously some really cool sneakers, not only in terms of design, but the thought process behind it. ‘Cause sometimes I don’t really need a full-on running shoe or whatever for what I’m doing, I just want to be able to hang around outside or throw the football around or whatever…and that just seems like it’s perfect for that.

KP: Yeah, and it’s a perfect gym shoe too. We call it a warm-up trainer or a cool-down trainer…it’s kind of like a hybrid between a slide and a shoe. And for working out, you don’t even feel like you have anything on your feet. That’s what’s amazing about it. AND you get the ventilation through the side, through the holes in the shoe…it was just a really innovative product that we were ahead of the game on.

We’ve had a few things that we’ve been ahead on a little bit. We did the Feed the Cat mid…I think we launched that over a year ago, and it was actually before Nike started getting a lot of traction on the Blazer. We had that kind of silhouette going…but again, we’re a new brand, we just don’t have that level of trust [from the consumers]. I mean, we do now, we’re getting there, but at the beginning we just didn’t have that level of credibility where people are like, “Yeah that’s gonna be the new trend.” I think the goal for us is if we can align these innovative stories with what’s happening in the market, we’re gonna be there, y’know? It’s definitely gonna be the catalyst to get us going.

TSC: Is there any one thing that you think in the back of your mind that’s gonna get Pony there? Just because looking at the product itself, I’m looking at it, and I’m really excited about a lot of it. I see a lot of things that I would personally go out and buy, but like you said, maybe the marketing budget’s not big or whatever, but what do you think will get Pony to where you want it to go?

KP: It’s clearly a brand, and I’m not just saying this, but the reaction that you have is time and time again the same exact reaction that we get from celebrities we get wearing our stuff, from people we have come into our showroom, it’s always the same thing. It’s like, “I can’t believe the level of cool stuff you guys are doing, where do I get it?” So that’s part of the problem, we’re building so much cool product, it’s just not 100% available to everyone and that’s what we’re trying to build up with the accounts and everything. And to be perfectly honest, we are not – and I think this is good – we are not a one shoe brand, and that’s why the potential for us is greater than some of these [other guys].

So when you think of Converse, okay, the Chuck (Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars) resurrected them. They’re killin’ it with the Chuck, and they’ve been doing that for several years now. That trend will eventually die out. If you look at their other stuff, their performance and all that…they don’t do anything compared with what they do with the Chuck. When they came back on the scene, it was with one shoe…Nike’s not a one shoe brand, Adidas isn’t a one shoe brand. I think that the companies that have the most growth potential are not the companies with one shoe…I mean, look at Crocs. They came out with one idea, and that was basically the rise and fall…it caught on, it capitalized, and then it went the other way. Now what are they doing?

TSC: It makes me sad that Crocs are popular. They’re just awful, at least in my opinion. [laughs]

KP: [Laughs] I know, I couldn’t agree more. But again, you know, it’s the brand…we want the brand to mean something to people. The product’s there, we already have the product and we’re building, slowly building the brand equity back up. Because you gotta remember too that we’re dealing with two separate generations. We’re dealing the generation that actually remembers Pony, and remembers, “Oh yeah, I had a pair of them back in the day” and stuff, that’s your 30+ consumer. And then you have the new kid that we have to resonate with, that doesn’t remember Pony, that has no idea. It’s a two-headed monster…we have to capitalize on the assets that we do have to capture a connection with the older consumer, and also be this young, fresh, new brand that’s actually an authentic brand to this younger kid. We’re doing all sorts of things, we’re not a one shoe brand, but our product speaks for itself and it has to. Like I said, the feedback has been nothing short of great with our product…so that’s the one good thing we have going, everyone we give stuff to and show it to, they’re geeked over it.

TSC: Yeah, my friend Cas and I, the other guy on Steel Closet, we saw the [product] lineup and we said that we HAVE to interview these guys. It’s just super exciting to see a brand come back. And not just come back with a whimper, not just one or two things, you guys have a full line of stuff to be super stoked on. That’s one of the reasons that we really wanted to contact you guys and see what’s going on with the company, with you guys designing…

KP: I think one thing just to mention too is that…where we sit in the marketplace in terms of price point is such a key thing to add as well. We are a brand that is basically going through a renaissance right now, but we will not compete at certain price points. We know that. If you actually remember Pony back in the day, it was always a value brand. Not like the lame value band, but just a value brand, y’know? You couldn’t afford the Nikes, so you got the Ponys, you knew what you were gettin’, you were still cool. You repped them, you rocked them and you were proud of what you got. We’re trying to capture that same sort of ideology, and we want to excel at more the…I don’t want to say volume price points…but, we’re not going to be building $120 basketball shoes. It just doesn’t make sense for us. But what we’re gonna do, at that mid-price point, at that $85 shoe, that $80 shoe…we’re gonna CRUSH. We’re gonna innovate at 80 bucks. And that’s kind of the difference in the platform that I’ve set up. Nike’s at $120 or whatever, and if you look at a lot of what they do, they set the tone, they set their advertising around one shoe that’s at a hundred and whatever dollars right, and everything below that is sort of a take-down or inspired by? Well think about it. Our statement is gonna be around that $80 or $85 price point. So that means that our shoe is gonna be innovative and cool and different and new because that’s gonna be our ceiling, and we’re gonna have this innovation next to this shoe that’s a take-down of the one that you want but can’t afford.

We feel like we have the ability to make a tremendous amount of growth with that level of thinking. I think that the Feed the Cat is a perfect example. The [Nike] Blazer is what, $70, I think they’re charging, $65 to $85 for the Blazer…

TSC:Yeah, I think that’s about what they’re charging.

KP: …for the really cool material and color versions of that, and we’re charging 59 bucks, sometimes $55, and that’s why they’re [the Feed the Cat] doing well, it’s overvalued for the price.

TSC: That totally makes sense.

KP: It’s creating cool, but you don’t have to break the bank, y’know what I mean?

TSC: Yeah…I’d say that at least for nine out of ten people I know, unless they’re looking to get a pair of on-court-only basketball shoes, I don’t really know anyone spending more than $60-70 on their day to day sneakers anyway.

KP: Exactly. And I’m going to give you a little insight on this…we have my own signature…I came up with a signature collection called Product of New York.

TSC: Oooh…I have not heard of this.

KP: Okay, we’re trying to get some traction on this right now, we have samples created so we’re trying to them sold into boutiques. Product of New York obviously stands for P.O.N.Y., we were born in Brooklyn in ‘72, and the whole premise behind this collection is this is our high-end, elite collection. And when I say “high-end”, it’s only from eighty to a hundred dollars. It’s premium materials, it’s beautiful, clean, classic patterns we pulled from the archives, that we re-spun in more fashion-driven – but wearable – materials.

Kind of the thought process was that I’ve got a technical background, I built up my resume in performance and all that sort of thing…they look really clean and sleek and casual, but the comfort on these things are insane, because the way we constructed it, we have a drop in, super-thick, polyurethane insole. So when you step in them, it’s just incredible, it really is…we just constructed it different than your traditional cupsole or vulcanized shoe on the market. The value’s built into the comfort, it’s immediate, as soon as you step into the shoe that has this built in.

TSC: Are these out yet? When do you plan to have these out?

KP: We’re selling them in now, and we’re trying to get them in for Spring 2010. That’s when we’re trying to launch them.

TSC: Do you have pictures of these that we can maybe check out?

KP: Absolutely…

TSC: I’m a super huge sneaker fan, ever since I got a pair of expensive sneakers back in the fourth or fifth grade or whatever, I’ve just never been able to get away from it. Talking to you about this stuff…like I’m really geeking out right now, I don’t know if you can tell. I really appreciate this, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us…

…So I’ve got one more question to ask you, if you don’t mind, to wrap this all up. I know you’re a sneaker guy, and that’s what you’ve been doing for a long time, so I gotta ask you what your favorite sneaker of all time is, if you only had to pick one pair to live through the rest of your life.

KP: Ahhh, man. [laughs] It’s tough, because when you’re a “sneaker guy”…

TSC: One’s not enough!

KP: Exactly. The thing is, I don’t like to categorize myself as a sneaker guy…I’m a designer, first. That, to me, is an advantage, to separate myself. And what’s cool is, I wouldn’t be where I’m at without guys like you, guys that appreciate what guys like me do. I feel like I’m a fan of footwear, not for the end result, but I’m more of a fan of it for the process, and kind of the product timeline.

It’s the one industry where I can design – shit, a bunch of different projects – right? And a couple of them come out amazing, let’s say that a couple of them don’t come out that good – big deal. I’m on to the next season. And then I’m on to the next season. It’s such a rapid changing, it’s a continuum, and what’s really cool about that is you never…[laughs] as soon as you think you’ve created the coolest shoe, you’re on to the next thing. If I was designing cars, or drills, consumer electronics, the product cycles are much longer. I’d be working on the tail light of a car for about two years, three years. It’s just really unique from that standpoint. Not to mention that you can wear your designs at the end, which I think is very self-gratifying to be able to say, “I designed these.”

I guess I’m infatuated with…I mean, I grew up definitely with a couple shoes that were very vivid. The Bos [Bo Jackson]…the [Nike] Bo Trainers to me, were just, to this day…copper and off-white with a hit of blue. Those Bos were like, I didn’t even wanna wear ‘em. I was just in love with those shoes. Adidas’ trail running stuff that they did in the early 90s, before New Balance basically copped all that business, that was kind of like what I was into in the early 90s and stuff like that. But again, I’m more a fan of the process. There’s not like one shoe…there’s not like the [adidas] Stan Smith or the [Nike] Air Max or any of that, I was never an Air Max guy.

TSC: I can totally respect that. I guess from a design standpoint, if I was designing shoes too, I’d always want to make the next thing, and not just stick around with what I’ve got right now.

KP: And the thing is, which I guess is a little contradictive on my part, but I think some of the best designers think like consumers. If I wasn’t thinking like a consumer, then I’d just be an artist. I’d just be designing for myself. But I’m not [an artist], I’ve gotta design things that have a unique point of view that I think is appropriate, but also at the end of the day has to resonate with the masses. I have to be able to mass produce it. I am just a fan of the design process, and sneakers are my outlet right now, and probably will be until the day I die. I feel like I’ve spent so much time and energy, and have done well, with this craft of sneaker-making and designing and stuff that I just…I love it!

I appreciate design, it doesn’t matter from what brand, and that’s a trait that, as you get older…you just don’t have the blinders on anymore, y’know what I mean? You put down your preconceived ideas of things, you just appreciate design whether it’s a Nike shoe or an adidas shoe or another brand….I look to see what other people are doing and that’s cool, that makes sense for them, for that brand, or that’s innovative, or that’s not [laughs]…it’s just a cool industry.

TSC: Thanks again for doing the interview with us. Do you have any last words, anything you wanna say to our readers at all?

KP: Stay tuned. Keep checking back with us. We are rapidly changing, and that’s one of our biggest things, we feel like we are a continuum. We’ve come out with different seasons and we have a lot of stuff in the tank right now that we’re mixing up…we wanna make the Pony brand itself mean something. The product is just a by-product of that. The product is an expression out of that. We want people to stay tuned with Pony and keep their eyes out for some great things to come, and we feel like we won’t let them down.

TSC: …I love what you guys are doing, and taking the time to explain your whole thought process, not just for the shoe but for the entire brand, it’s seriously been a privilege for me because I’ve not gotten this sort of insight into any major brand, much less a sneaker brand, and so I just want to thank you again.

*****
Stay tuned, Closeteers…later this week we’ll have EXCLUSIVE shots of the brand new Product of New York line by Kyle Pulli. Thanks again to Colin and Kyle at Pony.

www.pony.com

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Comments ( 2 )

im feeling the feed the cat shoe its nice.i have some great ideas and im trying to get a store outhere in vegas how can i become a pony distribution?
thanks
kyle pulli

marq nelson added these pithy words on Jun 09 09 at 8:51 am

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