It’s impossible to walk with Salehe Bembury and not stare at everyone’s feet.
The asphalt is stick-to-your-soles hot as Bembury, one of the most famous shoe designers on the planet, threads his way through the stalls of Pasadena, California’s legendary Rose Bowl Flea Market where, once a month for the last 50 years, designers like Christian Louboutin have gone elbow-to-elbow with bargain hunters in search of unique treasures. The thousands of stalls filled with millions of knickknacks feel, in many ways, more oppressive than the blacktop, a seemingly endless array of faded Yu-Ghi-Oh tees and frayed Lakers jerseys, mid-century dining tables, and 35 mm-era Olympus point-and-shoots. But as we walk, a quick glance beneath the card tables reveals a whole other world, a tacit language gestured through our footwear.
Gen Z goths and Gen X home-improvement types rock the same black Vans Old Skools (though in the latter case, they’re bruised and ripped at the seams). The millennials-with-a-job wear stock Air Max 90s and Yeezy 350s. Then there are the hypebeasts who have chosen something quirkier to signal their elevated taste. When we turn a corner, three young men are waiting—wearing, respectively, mint-condition Midnight Navy Nike Dunks, Off-White x Jordan 5 SP “Sails,” and turquoise New Balance “Water Be the Guide” sneakers—and that’s when I realize that this group isn’t here by coincidence.
I’m a professional design writer, and I can’t tell you who designed my car, my couch, my refrigerator, my home. But I do know that the 6-foot-3 man standing next to me created those shaggy-textured New Balances, as does everyone else in that group. They can also tell you that it’s the second most sought-after color combination of his reinterpretation of New Balance’s 2002R shoe, meaning it’ll run you about $300 on a resale site. The most coveted version—Bembury’s Peace Be the Journey, which captures the golden hues of Antelope Canyon—can fetch more than double that.
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