The subjectivity of art knows no bounds, a lesson that Jared Hunte learned when he was just about 15 years old.
Now 27, he has chosen footwear as his canvas, as he cleans, restores and customises shoes through his business, Good Sole Shoe Therapy.
“From doing certain projects at school, like for SBAs, it dawned on me that art didn’t have to be limited to a piece of paper or a traditional canvas. I realised I could try it on shoes, clothing, and even abstract paintings on walls. And that kind of steered me into the direction of initiating customisations of shoes,” he told WE.
The Cleaver Heights resident said T&T has a huge shoe culture, with people tending to spend thousands of dollars on sneakers.
“So I just came up with the idea that I could help people preserve these treasures.”
But initially, that was not where the focus lay. He used cleaning and restoration as his foundation – habits that were influenced by both his childhood home and school environment.
“Growing up in Maloney Gardens, in those buildings, those 64 apartments, every weekend when children were home from school, everybody would make it a custom to clean their sneakers and hang them out on the railings,” he said with a laugh.
“And then apart from that, when I attended Trinity College East as well, a major custom was that everybody had a shoe brush. So between class breaks, you would see people going by the pipes and wetting their shoe brushes and brushing their shoes clean. So that kind of stuck with me.”
His first step in 2018 was ordering a shoe cleaning kit from a London-based company. The kit was quite basic, with a shoe brush, a microfibre towel and a shoe cleaner. But it was a start in the right direction.
“I practised on my own sneakers, then I tried it on different types of shoes and grew my customer base from there.”
Even people from Tobago, he said, would sometimes come to Trinidad just to get their shoes restored.
“Like, for example, those white Air Force One white sneakers, over time, the midsoles would tend to get yellow, and the rubber would tend to get yellow because of oxidation. People would come to me to restore them to their original look.”
Eventually, he expanded into customisation, which he explained is not a one-size-fits-all process.
“Certain types of shoes and certain materials of sneakers would only allow for certain types of customisation.”
Hunte uses leather shoe paints and stencils to turn his customers’ shoes into works of art, as well as hydro-dipping, a process through which custom designs are applied to three-dimensional objects. Both methods take a lot of time and patience, beginning with, yes, a clean pair of shoes.
He said he gets quite a lot of requests for customisation, especially around this time of year.
“We are now in summer time, and a lot of shoe brands would be dropping and there will be sneakers collaborations. Some people may not be able to afford them, but they may have a similar pair. I can work with them and try to get it done as best as I can.”
His customers contact him via Instagram or TikTok, after which he requests a picture or video of the item showing the damage or the service they require.
“And I just do a quick assessment and give a quote. I either go to collect the sneakers or have them meet me. So I offer collection and delivery services as well.”
He said his work has already attracted regional customers, with one person from Guyana contacting him as soon as they landed in Trinidad to have their shoes customised.
Eventually, he plans to take his craft to an international level, where people are willing to pay a premium for his services.
“People will pay over a million dollars for a pair of Game 1 sneakers from an athlete, or just because a celebrity touched a certain pair of newly-released shoes. I would like to help them cherish those memories as well, out there. And I know the market would pay ten, 20 times more than that of Trinidad and Tobago.”
And while he has sometimes used clothing as his canvas, it is not a service that he generally offers to the public.
“A few years ago I did a jacket for a close friend of mine, but I haven’t really offered it as a major service. But, I mean, if a customer is to message me and say they want a jersey with a football print on it or something like that, I’d probably do it with the DTF printing or acrylic paints.”
