The infamous pair of Bapes that came in here,
they were soaked, they were literally covered in blood...
Blood!
And I was like "Yo what are we look..."
like "is this like evidence or what?"
Whatup guys.
Welcome to another episode of Soul Searching.
We are here in Los Angeles at the Jason Markk
flagship store with none other than Jason Markk himself.
Whatsup guys
So just tell me kinda when the light bulb went off
that you knew that this had to come to market.
I was cleaning my shoes one night and I was using
a homemade concoction on mine.
And just scrubing my sneakers one night and
I was thinking like "There's nothing that is out there
made for someone like me.
Nothing specialized for sneaker culture."
So that was sorta my a-ha moment.
I just felt I needed to make a shoe cleaner that
people could trust ya know?
That was just made for someone like myself.
What kinda scientific mad scientist zone did you go
into to find these things?
The first thing I did was I hired a chemist.
I knew sort of what sneak...what sneaker heads needed.
What the concerns were.
You know?
SO I had to sit down with him.
I basically brought in a bunch of kicks and was
like eucating him on like different material.
You know I had to show him like "Yo this is patent leather.
This is cotton mesh.
This is suede.
And here are different grades of suede." Ya know?
How was it early on?
Was it like hand to hand?
Were you hitting up events?
it was just hustling man.
Like I had maybe like two, twenty five hundred
I think, units was my first production run.
And it was just going to trade shows.
I had the product and just literally with backpacks
going and walking the floor just hustling ya
know giving people samples and what not and it
actually got a lot of press right out the gate.
So tell me about the store.
When people come, you know, to your physical
location what are some of the things that, you know,
they'll see.
What can they expect?
So the store, I wanted to create an environment
where it was just like you were just immersed in
Jason Markk brand.
You know it's sneakers but it's also like the
lifestyle that comes with sneakers.
When you walk in here it's just a vibe you know?
Yes
It's like people come, they hang out, they chill,
they relax, they're reading magazines.
Talking sneakers.
Right
You might pick up a pair of socks and maybe some
new shades and a mag and I'm out ya know?
You know you can drop off your sneakers.
It's basically like dry cleaning for kicks.
We have everything from the basic clean from ten
dollars to your...our most premium package is called
the purple label detail.
You know we try to get um back as close to dead
stock as possible.
Wow..
As possible, you know sometimes...
Sometimes life happens.
Sometimes life happens and that's what it is and
that's okay, cause that's character to the shoe.
What's like the craziest sneaker you've seen come
through this building?
We had a pair of Eminem 4's size 14.
I think there was only...there's only one
pair in the world as far as I know.
I might be mistake but...
Some shoes come in and they just need a touch up
and maybe people don't have the time to do it on
their own or whatever the case may be but...
And then we get shoes that are like the infamous pair
of Bapes that came in here, they were soaked,
they were literally covered in blood...
The guy he like, he almost blew his hand off on
fourth of July.
So my guys went to work.
They slapped the gloves on and he got um back and
they looked literally brand new.
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