ISSUE #1: ORIGIN STORIES

Like so many things for me, it all begins with music.

Back in 2017 I was still on Instagram. I am no longer a participant in any social media (unless you count LinkedIn...but should you?). Why? Well, that's for another newsletter. Suffice it to say that I discovered rather early on that the net effect of social media for me (and for everyone) is negative. But before that revelation, my favorite part of social media was discovery. At the time I was working on a software application for democratizing music discovery. As part of my research, I would spend hours on the internet trying to find new ways to find new music. One of those experiments (which in retrospect seems somewhat attenuated from music discovery) was to follow the social media pages of my favorite music artists and see who they recommended people listen to. I know this has already been solved for in innumerable playlists, podcasts and "curated" lists on pretty much every music platform. But, my theory went, there is a difference between (1) being asked to do something (or paid to do something) and then doing that thing as a performative action that is ultimately self-consciou, and (2) doing something spontaneously and out of the joy and inspiration of the moment. Social media, for all its flaws and perhaps because of those flaws, is a perfect way to see into the "id" of its users. So your favorite artist, who just got lit on a deep cut b-side of some obscure jazz record, will be more likely to give you a raw, emotional, authentic review of said record on their Twitter (ahem, X) feed the minute after they just got lit.

If you could still see my Instagram feed from 2017 you would find mostly my favorite musicians. The experiment sort of worked, in the sense that I think I discovered some new music. But ironically, and more relevantly for this newsletter, perhaps the most consequential thing that came from that experiment is the following post:
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Image from Quasimoto's Instagram
For the uninitiated, Quasimoto is the (an?) alter-ego of the (super) producer Madlib. I discovered Madlib accidentally in a record store in Ohio around like 2004 after purchasing a record of his remixes of songs from the Blue Note Records vault. At the time I had never heard of him, I just thought the idea sounded cool. Years later he is still one of my favorite music producers. I don’t even remember what the rest of Quasimoto’s Instagram looked like, but when I came across this Instagram post I remember it felt like being struck in the face. That’s why I took the screenshot. I immediately wanted a pair of these shoes. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that was exactly my thought. So the next thing I did was try to figure out who was responsible for the gorgeous sculptures in the image. God bless the people who made the internet searchable (for virtuous things). Because a few quick searches led me to the inimitable German artist Judith Hopf.

Here, I want to pause and acknowledge my A.D.D.... - ok, go.

Judith Hopf is a German artist whose multi-disciplinary practice includes sculpture and film. In various interviews and essays she talks about her work as playfully engaging in silly or even “stupid” things. But the juxtaposition of some of her work within the context of current problems helps give a tangible and cogent analysis of the absurdity in much of our modern life. I thoroughly enjoy her films. But for me the most sublime work she has created is a series of brick sculptures she started presenting around 2017. I’m not sure how Quasimoto found Judith Hopf, but it is a kind of providential touching of souls captured in the Internet amber of the above Instagram post. And I am the beneficiary, and hopefully so are you, because the chain reaction set by that image culminates in my wife and I moving to Europe to focus on developing our shoe company, which we would come to name ABAYA. 

During the seven (!) year journey that would lead to the launch of our first product, there was a lot of discussion, ideation, planning, travel, inspiration, disappointment, trying, prototyping, prototyping and prototyping. I now have to give all praises due to my lovely wife because without her there is no way my crazy idea to make a shoe inspired by a Judith Hopf sculpture could have even gotten off the ground. For example, she hand-sculpted the “last”, which is the initial form that ultimately gives the finished product its shape. Also, she knew how to program a CNC machine, which we used to carve the first mold for the cupsole so we could send it to our cupsole manufacturer and ensure nothing was lost in translation. See below for photographic evidence.
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Our first mold, carved in wax on a CNC machine.
Shout out to NextFab in South Philly.
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Our first last :), sculpted in clay by hand.
We learned the hard way that the "last comes first."
And that is just the product development! Behind the scenes we also had innumerable conversations about what we wanted this product (and our brand) to be. It is no longer acceptable to simply want to make a thing and send it into the inexorable stream of commerce. We knew we would have to contend with this from the beginning. Instead, creating for us had to have a meaningful process. And though we can be generous with what makes something "meaningful", we knew for ourselves and for this brand it would need to be very well-considered and at least aspirationally transcendent. So, for example, we decided early on that we would have to make a product that could be reproduced sustainably and with as little negative environmental impact as possible. This led us to completely reconsider the materials and processes that would go into making our shoes. Our commitment to being environmentally conscious and sustainable as a brand led us to a radical proposition. What if instead of trying to have as little negative impact as possible, we could actually have a positive impact - both environmentally and otherwise. Our philosophy is that design has the power to be redemptive. To put that into practice, we adopted a goal of only using "regenerative" leather in our shoes. (Shout out to our bro Ryan V. for putting us on to this idea). You can read more about regenerative agriculture on our "About Us" page. All the other materials in our shoes are also completely natural, from the latex rubber in our cupsole, to the cork and latex foam in our insoles. But that is only a beginning point. A truly transcendent consumer experience also requires narrative, otherwise it is just commerce. After all, human beings thrive on stories and visions - those are the ways we mark out the parameters of common flourishing (Proverbs 29:18).

So, what have we arrived at? Well, for that I once again need to reference my love of music. In this story I take you back to the shabby one-bedroom apartment I occupied in the year after I graduated from college. There I am, a much younger man, sitting on a shag (yes, shag) carpet staring out the window and sheathed in a ray of golden late-afternoon twilight. And I have tears in my eyes. I am listening to a new album that I have just purchased (from the same record store where I discovered Madlib, incidentally), but I have not made it past the fifth song on the album. That song -- called “Chest of Drawers”, from the magnificent album “Consider the Birds” by the band Wovenhand -- that song I have been playing on repeat for almost an hour. It is a revelation to me, a perfectly distilled act of worship by a man who fears and loves his God. It is Beauty and it is Truth. And in its warm grip I am transported to a prepared altar where I contemplate anew my relationship with my Creator, and my deepest longings, and my coldest fears. This moment, inasmuch as it can be captured, that is what I want ABAYA to evoke.

Now, is that possible? For a company that just sells shoes? I don’t know. But I sure want to try.

E

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