Restoring shoes started off as just a hobby for chemistry freshman Jonathan Brown.
Now it’s a profitable business for him.
“If you have some old messed up shoes, I can fix them up to look like brand new or just change them completely,” Brown said.
Brown takes beaten up sneakers and restores them to look fresh out of the box. He can also customize new pairs of shoes for a “dope new look.”
“Watching your creations come to life, that’s always great,” Brown said.“It’s not one of those things that feels like a chore, it’s something I actually enjoy doing.”
The shoe designing hobby all started for Brown about four years ago when he was a freshman in high school, watching YouTube videos on how to put a galaxy paint coat on a pair of Vans.
A countless number of shoes later, Brown now customizes and restores all types of gym shoes such as Jordan and Nike – and people pay for the designs.
“I can draw inspiration from pretty much anywhere,” Brown said. “If I see something I like, then I’m like, you know what, that would look good on a shoe.”
Working out of his residence hall, Brown’s services include shoe cleaning, color changes and sole dyeing. Just about any way a person would want their shoes customized, Brown can do it and for a cheap price.
He once saw a cool graphic on an old T-shirt and proceeded to put that graphic on a pair of Nike Roshe Runs.
“I pride myself in really paying attention to detail,” Brown said. “Anybody can pick up a brush and put a few strokes on there but it’s just how much work you put into it. and I think I put a lot of hard work into it.”
Right now, Brown is working on five different pairs of shoes for five different people. He said it takes him about a full day to finish working on a pair of shoes.
When restoring a sneaker, Brown first brushes off all the dirt, then he scrubs the shoe with special cleaning agents.
Depending what the person wanted done to their shoe, Brown then customizes the shoe by either airbrushing or painting.
Brown said he hopes to be able to start his own sneaker customizing and restoration business in a few years, possibly after graduation. He wants to start a website where people can put in a customer order or they can buy his own personally designed pair of shoes.
