Alyasha Owerka-Moore

Your official title at PF Flyers is “Brand Ambassador”—what does that involve?

This involves a lot of brand research, archival collecting, and organizing existing materials; from there I try to reference potentially lucrative points in that archive. I also try to get shoes to people – vintage dealers, collectors, designers, musicians, etc. – that already dig the brand. Helping connect the dots amongst existing fans of the brand and creating a network.  I’ve done a little bit of design, as well: 2 uppers and several t-shirts.

Is this a position you sought out, or did it find you?

I met the PF guys through Frank the Butcher. He asked me if I was still collecting sneakers, which I did a lot of back in the day, but at that point I had sold almost everything but my PF Flyers. I was really fascinated by the brand’s history, even doing some research on my own time – collecting old point of sale cards and kids shoebox prizes, for instance. So Frank asked why I wasn’t doing anything for PF, and it was mostly because I didn’t know anyone there. So he plugged me into Vic Aveles, their GM. We had a great conversation and the rest is history. I am truly honored to be part of such a great team and brand.

You’ve done your share of sneaker research before and after starting at PF–what have you learned along the way? What can you share with us?

At the turn of the century you have schools paying more attention to athleticism, but kids mostly wore shoes that were glued or stamped onto a leather sole. I’m not exactly sure who first applied the process of vulcanization to an athletic shoe, but from all the research that I’ve done—and I’m by no means an authority—Colchester were the first people to do it. If you Google “Colchester shoes,” you’ll see all of the classic sneaker DNA: patch on the ankle, vulcanized wrap, and canvas on the upper. Colchester were the first cats to do this kind of athletic shoe.

Shortly thereafter, or at around the same time, several rubber and canvas companies entered the athletic shoe market. Most people don’t know this, but Converse and BF Goodrich (PF) made rubber way before they made shoes. So from the 1930s from the 1960s, you have the big 3 running parallel with the same formula.

One interesting thing about PF is that they went really went big into rubberized shoes and work boots. Adults at the time didn’t wear sneakers–ever. If you were an adult mowing the lawn, you’d be wearing a captoe shoe or a buck, or something of that nature. So what PF did, which is kind of the beginning of the dressed down Friday thing, was that they made casual mens uppers on a rubberized sole. They weren’t the only people to do it, but they made bigger inroads than most into casual and semi-formal mens footwear. They made it so you could essentially wear sneakers with slacks without looking like you were wearing sneakers with slacks.

And the name, “PF Flyers?” Where did that come from?

BF Goodrich worked with orthopedists to develop the BF Goodrich “Posture Foundation,” which added a ridged wedge heel counter and built-in arch support. To cater to the children’s market,  “Posture Foundation” was trimmed down to “PF-Flyers.”

The internet can’t be all bad, right?

It’s a double-edged sword. I know my friend’s kids who are both punks and ill breakers, which shouldn’t be surprising because both punk and hip-hop were popular around the same time and were about similar things; both genres started on the street and a lot of these bands ran together in the 70s. But most people forget that, so the internet has helped kids make these kinds of connections.

At the same time, what usually happens is that people like what the guy with the most followers likes. Few do the research themselves anymore. There’s no digging, you just click from page to page and eventually you end up at Amazon or iTunes. You’d think the internet would make us more well-rounded, but both Facebook and Tumblr deliberately herd people. They say, “Be in trend!” by constantly showing us what everyone else is talking about. This is a Huxleyan, Brave New World way of making us sheep.

I think I just miss that old sense of discovery. There used to be more room to develop your own style even if it fit into a larger aesthetic group. But now it’s more like a uniform because each thing comes pre-packaged. Even smaller companies will package outfits for you, which I think is making people lazy.

What we wear does not reflect music-based subcultures anymore. And some people would argue that it’s a good thing. Maybe they’re right.

Our cultural tendency, and this isn’t limited to fashion, is to appropriate and sample different cultural aesthetics, old and new. Contemporary music is very similar in this regard. That being said, where do we go from here? Are we trapped in a vicious circle, or should we still expect something genuinely new? If so, how do you envision this change coming about?

I think two things are going to happen, and this is the way history generally works. First we’re going to get full-on branded people (like in Idiocracy): the “7-11 guy,” for example. And as much as I like Uniqlo, you’re going to see it there. Then, and this is the way history always works, someone starts something new. It’ll start small  and then, like a single-celled organism, split. And then split again. Streetwear happened like this. A bunch of kids around the world that were sick of The Gap and Ralph Lauren had a lot to say, politically and musically. These people gravitated toward each other, created an industry, and eventually became the status quo. This is the cycle.

That being said, I think the “traditionalists” will always be around—the skinheads, the mods, the rockabilly revivalists, goth kids, etc.. They will always be in their own worlds living as they always have.

Your background as a skater is present in almost all the work you’ve done over your long career. What makes skating such an important reference point?

The people that introduced me to skateboarding were creatives. Everyone that started out with Paul Smith were skaters. Spike Jonze was a skater.

I discovered it when my friend Jake Burlingham gave me a bunch of mixtapes, punk tapes, a Misfits t-shirt, and a couple of Transworlds and Thrashers. This was my starter kit. Every skating magazine in the 80s had a section about skateboarders that either painted, illustrated, sculpted, or both. I remember showing these magazines to my mom and, since she was an art historian, she was like: “this is really cool.” Since then I’ve met people from all socioeconomic walks of life that all went on to do really great things through skateboarding. Most of us have been friends for more than 30 years. There’s a certain freedom that skateboarding and the immediate culture that surrounds it kind of promotes. It’s an autonomous sport, which was one of the things I always loved about it. No one would get bummed if I didn’t make the goal or the pass. If I didn’t make a trick, the only person that I had to be accountable to was myself. It’s like a martial art in a lot of ways; you’re constantly just testing yourself. And you don’t have to be good in anyone else’s eyes because its your own deal. That’s what’s rad about it to me, and that’s why I’ve always kept it close.

Skating requires a person to think about their surroundings and surrounding objects for uses beyond their intended funtion, which I believe is an inherently creative activity. Could this account for the connection between skating and design?

Definitely. I can liken it to “assess, adapt, and overcome,” a military term. You constantly ask yourself: “What can I do with this curb? Look at this crazy cement thing that’s made to be the entryway to a basement door grate – what can I do with that? What about this curb cut for wheelchair accessibility?” You’re forced to look at your surroundings and architecture in a different way. Yes, this is essential to design.

Your successes outnumber your failures, but can you speak to some of your bigger missteps? What did you learn?

The end of Alpha can answer this question, and it’s why kids with unwarranted bravado freak me out. By all means, be confident in yourself, but also be clear about what you want to do. If you just want to be rich and famous, or just famous (which is a lot more common these days), then go for it.

At the height of Alphanumeric I was in my late 20s and making like $400k, which made me very overconfident. This lead to a falling out with our financiers. They fired a member of my staff, and I was like, “Hey, are we gonna have a sit down to try to mediate this?” And they were like, “Absolutely not – your guy is fired.” They could fire any of my people and I wouldn’t stand for it. Assuming I could have a new brand up and running in a couple weeks, I quit the company and my friends lost their jobs. I opened a new store, made really bad retail decisions, bought all the product outright, and kept it open out of pride. Eventually my business partner embezzled $100k and I ended up in debt with the IRS. This is money I could have used to buy a house or start another brand, but it was wasted because of my ego.

So I get really freaked out when I hear kids talk big when you try to caution them about mistakes they might make. I had a conversation with this kid about being an intern the other day and I asked, “well, what do you want to learn?” And he said, “I just wanna get my foot in the door and be famous.” He never mentioned design. We started talking about Instagram, so he asked how many followers I had. Since he ended up having more, he ended the conversation with: “Then I guess there’s no need for me to talk to you about this stuff anyway.” He had already surpassed me. Fair enough.

We live in a fascinating, occasionally depressing time. But I’m sure 40 years ago someone was saying the same thing. Every generation has issues with change.