CHENCHICHARO SHOWS US HIS DIGITAL HYBRIDS
Our latest Instagram discovery is creating a new way of understanding sneaker design. Freeing himself from the limitations of a real product, Chenchicharo’s digital creations take an idea that had already become usual in the market to the extreme, by combining different already existing models. His main traits are an amazing technical ability, an exhaustive knowledge of the product and being daring enough to mix elements that at first glance seem to be very far off. Enough reasons to sit down to talk with him about the origins of his designs but also about his projects, among which you’ll find a surprise.
In your work we can clearly see your amazing graphic skills but, above all, your love for sneakers really stands out. How did you start being so passionate about sneakers?
Since I was very young when my parents signed me and my siblings up for municipal sports academies and I tried basketball, from the very first moment the sneakers of the slightly older kids caught my attention. When I saw the sneakers that professional players were wearing, I thought they were amazing. And soon after, when my parents bought a PC and I learned to search on the internet ‘basketball’, ’NBA’ or ‘sneakers’, I would spend all the time that I had searching for websites, pictures and videos of everything that had to do with sneakers, and so everyday I learned about several new models.
What is the process like from when you initially choose a sneaker until you get the final result?
When I see something that has a peculiar connection to sneakers, I go to the computer and click on a folder where I save all things that I find interesting, no matter the subject, and I look for things that are in the same vane as what I want to convey with the sneaker. After that, I focus on the parts I find most interesting and I start trying out combinations until I get what I want. Very often I’ll start going down a path that, although some combinations might eventually come out from it, even though they’re not what I’m looking for at the moment, I save them because I find I could pick them up again in another moment.
What must two sneakers have to be ‘mashable’?
All sneakers are ‘mashable’, I try to find in them an element or characteristic that I find interesting for the final sneaker I want to create, so they don’t have to have a specific requirement as it depends on what I’m going to do in each case. Apart from this, there are sneakers that are meatier than others, which might be because they’re more complex when it comes to the fabrics, colourways, shapes, dimensions, technologies used, etc… or it may well be because of the context in which they’re in and the history they have behind them.
Sometimes you even mix models from different brands. Are there elements that are exclusive to a specific brand? Are there sneakers that can change brands just by changing the logo?
I don’t believe that there’s any element that is exclusive to any certain brand, that’s one of the reasons why I like to mix different types of sneakers. But I can’t deny that certain brands have managed to appropriate elements over the years. I think that the ones who have the final authority on that are the people; some get mad when you take classic silhouettes like the Jordan 1 or AF1 and you dare change anything else than the colour. And I sort of understand that they’re classics that should remain as such, but it’s not about substituting one thing for another one, these classics can and should coexist with experimentation.
And in connection to this, the fact that there are people who associate certain elements with a specific brand makes for the perfect chance to generate new points of view. The fact of substituting or taking the brand from a sneaker away invites you to rethink whether you actually like the sneaker or just the brand and it allows you to focus on different parts of the sneaker that you might have not paid attention to initially.
It is exactly the same when you’re using two big brands between which a certain kind of rivalry exists as when an athlete has been successful for years playing for a team which they then suddenly stop playing for; some will love that and others will burn the shirt, but everyone will want to see how their career will turn out (even if from afar), and that’s what I find interesting.
Some of your work shows how labour intensive your research is when you combine models that have a common origin, like Fear of God’s Air Raid or the Alpresto that combines the Alpha and the Presto. To what extent is each design’s history important when it comes to combining them?
The history of the sneaker might be the most important part. We can’t forget that at the end of the day a sneaker is a product which tries to solve a problem, which is why I’m so interested in who designed it, how they designed it, why they designed it like this and not in any other way, etc. I believe that that’s really interesting to understand the way and the context in which people have solved the ‘problem’ of athletic footwear in the past, to get perspective and to now be able to create coherent designs.
On the other hand, you can indeed do anything on the computer, and that’s why I sometimes like to try weird combinations for no apparent reason, because, sometimes, consequently, some interesting things that I had never thought of before can come out of that.
Kobe 3, a prototype of the Vapormax and the Shox, almost unknown Street Hockey sneakers like the Nike Street Defender. Do hidden models give you more freedom?
I find lesser-known models and prototypes especially interesting. In the case of the lesser-known models, they were often too innovative for the context in which they appeared (like many models from the Nike Alpha Project) and they stayed in the foreground, behind other more popular ones that weren’t necessarily better. Sometimes it just so happens that for image rights and contract reasons with brands, an athlete’s sneaker line is sort of suddenly stopped and gets left behind and that makes me think of what would have happened if that line had continued.
On the other hand, it might just be that the models simply weren’t good designs, in which case I find them equally interesting to learn about what you shouldn’t do. And, in the case of the prototypes, they’re sneakers that can show you where things were heading before they reached to the final result and when you compare them with the final version you can see which problems were found and how they solved them. And, on top of that, I see an opportunity to figure out how I would have solved them.
Do you have the intention of making any of them a reality?
Yes, that is my objective; I am one of those people who believe sneakers are made to be worn. And so at the moment, I’m working to find the best way to carry that out.
