Sneakerphile x adidas Superstar 2 “Sundaes”

• MODEL: ADIDAS SUPERSTAR
• CUSTOMIZED BY: SNEAKERPHILE
• MADE IN: UNITED KINGDOM
• MADE ON: --/12

Sneakerphile fires up his compressor and licks into the fresh summer sun with a pair of sugary Superstar 2′s, custom colored to keep his feet cool while he’s catching rays out in the UK. Aptly named the “Superstar Sundaes”, his clean handiwork and great color choice are excellently exhibited in these delicious Supes. As always we hunted him down for a chat in his studio to see what spawned these sweet shell toed trainers.

Yo ‘phile, what made you go for a Superstar 2 for these?

To be honest, the reason for using the Superstar 2′s was purely down to colour. I’ve had these vanilla “Frosts” for quite a few years now, and loved them as soon as I saw them, but they’ve been tucked away for some time. I wanted to do something special with them. Originally I had considered just a simple colour change – I was gonna do the main body in a dark (possibly metallic) blue and leave the stripes and heel tab vanilla – but then I had the ice cream idea, and I thought these would be perfect, especially as the midsole and shell are also vanilla. I felt this would help the design flow across the whole shoe, rather than stopping dead at a white border.

Was it just the vanilla that got you hungry for this design?

I like to keep a few print outs of a blank Superstar template in my desk drawer, and when I have some free time or an idea I can draw straight onto the page and get a feel for what it would look like. Sometimes, you can have what may seem like a good design idea, but it just doesn’t work on the shoe. I prefer to go old school and use pen and paper for my design work, rather than a computer. The inspiration for these actually came from a bottle of water, believe it or not. I had a bottle of water on my desk, and the top half of it was embossed to look like ice melting down the bottle. I took out a template and started playing with the design, drawing the ‘drips’ on the shoe, and from that sketch it looked to me like melting ice cream. And so the ‘Sundaes’ were born!

And the colorway? Are these significant ‘flavors’ or based on something else?

The colourway was the first one that came to me, and I thought it would look the best. Plus, those Frosts were just sitting there, waiting for me to make them look like pudding!

[laughs]

Word, so can you share your technique with us? How’d you do these?

As with most of my work, I use the good-old ‘cut-out-stencils-until-your-hand-and-wrist-are-cramped’ method, along with an airbrush and a lot of patience. The hardest part with these was that I had to strip down most of the entire shoe. That meant that I then had to try to mix the paint to get the exact same vanilla colour as the original, so that the bottom third of the shoe looked as it did before painting.

How do you kill the time while you’re waiting for the layers to dry?

Pretty much split my time between playing Xbox and watching the HBO series Homeland… if you haven’t seen it, you have to!

Are these for sale or a part of your personal collection?

I wanted to design a pair of customs just for me for a long time, but I could never come up with an idea that I liked, or I was always thinking about other people’s designs. When I got the idea for these, for a second I thought I could do them on a random shoe and sell them. But then I thought hey, screw that, I want them! It made a nice change, because I have done a couple of pairs in the past that, once they were finished, I really wanted to keep them for myself!

Regarding commissions, obviously you’re open for business, but are there any details or limitations peeps should know about?

I don’t really know what my own limits are yet to be honest. I ask people to just let me know what sort of thing they are looking for, and then I will look into it. If I think for a second that I can’t produce what they’re after, I will tell them. I’d sooner lose out on the job than give the client crappy work.

Yeah, that’s an admirable way to work. Now what about silhouette options?

To date, I have only been working on Superstars (2′s, 80′s, Skates, etc) but I’m open to try other styles. I’d love to do a ‘larger’ canvas someday, such as some nice Decade’s, Conductor’s or other such high tops. Bottom line, adidas only. Seems snobbish, and it is!

[laughs]

And color choices?

As for colours, well, I don’t really have any restrictions. The paints I use have quite a large selection of colours, and if I can’t buy it, I mix it.

Sounds fantastic, we’d be super keen to see what your airbrush can do against some high tops! On that note, any hints about what’s up next in your studio?

I have an idea for a motorbike-inspired pair. I have always loved race bikes, and love to watch the MotoGP, and my favourite bike since I was in my late teens has always been the Suzuki GSXR 750. Very few bikes actually have ‘designs’ so to speak, they’re usually just one colour (think Kawasaki green), but the GSXR has a distinctive pattern and colourway that I think would work really well on a Superstar. I have the basic design drawn up, I just need to get hold of a pair to put it on. Once I do, you’ll be the first to know.

You got us excited ‘phile! Before we bounce on out, how can people get at you for sick pair of customs?

If anyone’s interested in getting their own bespoke pair of Supes (or other fine adidas) then drop me a line at deamo69@hotmail.com or look me up on SSDB.

written by Dylan Cromwell

photography by errol