THE OBSERVATION BOOTH
OP-ED By Andrea Dialect
TRAVEL LOG …
PAGE JACKER: ROLAND AKA SLUGGA
RESERVE. LOUISIANA
PATH CROSSING: @ NEWARK AIRPORT
BRAND: BLU CLOTHING (Balance Lyfe Untouched)
Sneaker collecting
Sneaker collecting is the acquisition and trading of sneakers as a hobby. It is often manifested by the use and collection of shoes made for particular sports, particularly basketball and skateboarding. A person involved in sneaker collecting is sometimes called a sneakerhead. – Wikipedia
Authenticity Guarantee
Verification – which all the big resell players, such as StockX, Kick Game, eBay, Goat and Klekt, now provide – is key. Experts can sniff out fakes, sometimes literally. “There is a certain smell to Nike sneakers from the glues they use and the factories they are made in,” says Brandt.
Off White Jordan 1
White Euro EU Exclusive
HE SAYS, SHE SAYS
Andrea: I was heading down to my sister Tamie’s house to see the fam and before entering Newark airport I promised myself that I wouldn’t be conversing with anyone that day. I was to stay in the moment by being quiet as a mouse supposedly usta be. (I’ve never known them to be that quiet by the way) I found a quiet little spot. I had made it through the corridors and safety check and all, sticking to my guns and this sista was proud. I gave myself that mental high five as I positioned myself in my seat. Shortly after I would kick back as leaning in the chair, like someone I likely shouldn’t be mimicking at the time would do.
Then I began to scan the room. I said I wasn’t talking I never said that I wouldn’t be on the hunt for a good mental glean of something or someone intriguingly interesting. Nothing had registered on the radar and as I repositioned myself dropping my head down to do that quick scan of the floor from left to right then to left again, “Bam” it hit me. On the left, I spotted the most peculiar thing worn by the guy two seats over. There were these sneakers right.
A basic pair of Nikes so I thought then something caught my eye. It looked as if the Nike swoosh was dangling off the shoe like some cut-out one of those youngins made at camp. That shady-looking art project was now hanging on their mama’s fridge. I gave em a once over than a twice over then…. You get the pic. Let’s just say I couldn’t figure that thing out and luckily my life hadn’t depended upon it. So I found myself breaking vow once again lol.
Me: “Hey, how much did you pay for those sneakers. Is that a cut-out? It looks like it’s just dangling there. What the heck!” (Let’s just say heck for now lol!)
Him: “Guess.”
Me: They look like they will be a bit more than usual I guess uhhhhh $200. He snickered. $400.00. He snickered again, wise guy. You paid 5 or $ 600.00 for those sneakers? He laughed!
Him: ” More!”
Me: I know you didn’t pay 1,000.00 for those sneakers I scolded. Once again he said more and after my initial shock the ol deer in headlight thing weighed on him and he says….
Him: Let me show you how much I paid for these sneakers.
Mr. Cool aka Slugga whose cell phone was already in hand. Worked the usual finger glides and then “bam” the second slap really hit me. You sitting down? Now factor in this cost. $7,000.00 plus!
Let me spell it out just in case you don’t grasp the number. Seven thousand ducats I tell ya. For the first time in this life, I was speechless. My adult children would have loved to have seen that one.
WHAT’S IN THE BAG?
If that hadn’t been enough, I thought that I’d need to be carried out when peering down into those bags that he toted with him with the customized shoes that were to be hand-delivered. I was clutchin’ my pearls but only for a moment until I learned of his story.
Slugga is a really nice guy. You know how much I love getting into the heads of others, so I asked my boy this simple questions. If he could only have one tool to aid him in his life what would it be? His answer was his 2022 Silverado; wow. Secondly, I told him in closing that had I known the value of all that he was wearing on his person when he sat behind me on that airplane that evening.
While he was back there snoring, I would have stripped him down to his socks lol…
“I liked them so I bought them. Material wise yeah I think that was a stupid decision but at the time I had the money to just blow on em. Which I knew was high. But, ironically those sneakers have become even more valuable now if I were to sell. Now that the guy who made them (Virgil Abloh) just recently died.
“Those authentic off-white shoes, yeah, it was just a pair of shoes that I always wanted. I would say to myself I’m not going to get them it’s stupid those shoes are way too high. Now I’m not a big sneaker head so mine are in a box in the room just on the shelf. Still, I’m gonna handle it with care.
“I had them for about four months now and that was my second time wearing them when you met me. The packaging is like a regular shoe box, but it has like a split on the top and you flip it open and you see the shoes through like this little glass lookin thing and when you open it, it comes with different color shoelaces and all kinds of thank you cards and stuff. When sneakerheads see them their like, “Oh those them Jordan Ones.” A person that really knows shoes or even are just kinda into shoes might say. I’m going to think like a regular person here. If I were to see someone in those shoes I think two things. Either they got some money or how the “LETTER AFTER E” he got those!
“I’m a jewelry head, but when I go certain places, you’re not going to see me in jewelry. I prefer jewelry more than those shoes. When I wear them, I have on a plain outfit, so I really won’t draw that attention. That day I just happen to be wearing customized the letter was actually snakeskin and it was an authentic Michelin X Michael Jordan Jersey. To put a price on that the shirt was bout three thousand dollars.
“I am a simple man I have a nice little four-bedroom house. So splurging ain’t something I usually do. But, I do base my own designs on what I know my worth is. If you want a shoe upgrade and those shoes were a hundred dollars, I’m going to charge you somethin’ more than a hundred. It’s the cost of the materials that is what I also base my pricing on. Then I think of myself and what I’m worth. I do clothes and custom services a lot but it’s just that the shoes even mines are more money.
“I don’t really wear anybody else’s stuff. I wear my own designs. I started my line “BLU CLOTHING brand four years ago. I manufacture everything in house which also mean in the house. I have a space there for me to work in. One section is for sewing, the other heat pressing, the other embroidery and that other one for just customizing. I’ve got my own setup.
“I’m in this for the long haul because it’s a passion of mine it’s something I want to wake up every morning and do, it’s just the love that I have for it. As far as getting someone to help goes I am definitely getting somebody to help, I am overwhelmed with orders right now. Sometimes I don’t want to do it, but I have to push a person back a day just so that I can get this paid order out of the way. It takes its toll on me. I don’t have an apprentice. I have two sisters and I am the baby. My second to the oldest sister I have trained her, and I got her to the level where she has her own supplies. So, if i am really overwhelmed and I’m busy doing this or that she can do it for me.
“I have two girls fifteen and eight. One of them be in there watching me. She sucks it all in. I think she’s gonna get the hang of it. She knows what to do.
“They call me Slugga, everybody knows me by that and all my life everybody has known me for two things and that was coming up rapping, but most know me from my customizing things. My real name is Roland, and I am from a small town named Reserve in Louisiana, about thirty minutes from New Orleans. So we the country and that’s all about that life. We’re country; Reserve is country. I mean you might see some cows but were not country, country like dirt road country.
“We’re sort of city because we’re outside of New Orleans and New Orleans is known as a city. We have our own swag compared to the North, West Coast, and East Coast. We started our own little thing and I notice that a lot of cities pick up from what the South’s doing. Coming up when I was young like in middle school I usta clown around and mark up my pants and make designs that went up and go down and loved painting my shoes as a joke but look at me now years later. The whole culture has changed, everybody has their style now.
“When you come to New Orleans, you’re going to see all types of variety of swag. When you come down here, you’re not going to want to leave. The only thing bad right now is that it is hot down here. In my mind, I think we are the hottest state. Let me look at my phone …. Right now, it’s saying 87 but it feels like 97. We’ve been in the hundreds; I think the highest I can remember is about 115 or somethin’.
“You gotta think when it comes to down here the humidity makes it hard to breathe because it gets so hot. I was born and raised here but on some of those days everyone says the same thing, man it’s getting hot!” Like you said we dealt with it so long were used to it. But people who come down probably can’t handle it like we can. I be surprised, like when I saw you up there, it was kinda cold. If you looked at me, I had on a basketball jersey because I know that once I hit Louisiana the weather is going to be totally different.
“To answer your question, I travel pretty often but it’s really when something’s going on. I don’t do it much like vacation-wise because I really be busy. A rough guess 12 or more times a year. As far as dropping off products to customers I do that pretty often. If it’s out of state, I charge more because you’re going to have to pay for my plane ticket. It depends on how we work it out. I like to give it to them in person because I get to see the reaction on their face.
“When you saw me, I was making two drop-offs, but I was also attending a class. That’s why I did that hand to hand because of the class. Shout out to Leila And Stitch up there in Jersey just a shout out to her. I learn some helpful techniques. I personally know how to do a lot when it comes to custom. Like I told you a lotta people purchase a lot of custom stuff from me. But she gave me a training technique that was different from what I’d been using. It was a nice training class I really enjoyed it. It was like teaching so I could elevate in what I know already.
“When it came to prices or charging folk this was my downfall when I first started if I knew you, if I grew up with you and were friends, I always gave you a discount. Then after a while, I started noticing that I’m beating myself up I wasn’t getting what I was really worth. So as time went on if you want certain things. It depends on the vibe that I get from people I might tell you that I need a deposit and if I don’t know you, know you. Like you’re a never seen before person it’s pay upfront or it’s nothing.
“For instance, let’s say I did a pair of Air Force 1’s. Air Force 1’s is like one hundred dollars in the store, then I look at the materials that I’m using, like a pair of scissors I need to cut or any little knick-knack that I’m going to use I’m going to add that in, Then it depends on the fabric let’s say you want Gucci fabric I’m going to charge you whatever I get this fabric for.
“I don’t really do anything to get people to buy into what I’m doing. It’s show and tell I guess you can say that. I’m really just getting good with social media. A lot of my work comes through because I might do some custom work for somebody, and I forget to take pictures or something like that. If I tell this one person and this person is going to tell somebody else. I just make the shoe and I post it when I do think about it, it’s just word of mouth. I don’t do any big promoting on it. Like I said so many people know me it gets around and everybody wants to buy something, they’re looking at my page and now that person wants to try it. It basically promotes itself when it comes to social media.
BAIT AND SWITCH
“To be honest with you as far as work goes. I have only had two jobs all my life coming up in high school I played sports and I was pretty good in my senior year. I got into an accident I messed up my knee up, so I just left football alone and that’s what made me get into diesel. I got out of school, and I started messing with trucks. Working at a little diesel shop and I just kinda fell in love with that.
“In the mix of that, I wasn’t doing nothin else with myself, so I’d think about designing stuff. So those were the only two loves that I had and that was coming from high school. That paved the way and whenever I wanted to design something I had the diesel job that was going to pay for it. I kinda started finding myself and realizing that this was the thing that I loved doing and I got talent in this.
“In my senior year, I was on crutches for about three months, and I couldn’t do any kind of activities and nobody wasn’t looking at me and I couldn’t put a show on to get looks. Once my knee was healed. When I was able to go to college, I wasn’t worried about college. In my senior year I couldn’t do what I wanted to do so that had a strong impact, so I decided to get out there and get a regular job. I had that love for designing and diesel my two onlys.
“I’m not going to lie till today I miss playing football I’m not gonna lie. It was exactly three years after me being out of school that a friend who was always into football and he was playing semi-pro, and he got in my head and convinced me to try out for semi-pro football. I did make the team and I played for two seasons. But we weren’t getting paid what I wanted so I started losing interest in football, but I still had that passion for it, that was the shine right there, Plus I was starting but I was losing interest.
“When it comes to making money, I think that the whole Louisiana is about getting there’s. Were we at if at the bottom everybody’s a hustler, everybody’s trying to get. Here we have those that are down on their luck and when you reach downtown and you’re looking under the bridge you’re going to see a couple of tents, but as far as those people actually up and moving on their feet. I feel that everyone is a go-getter down here.
“I started my actual clothing line in 2017. I didn’t receive no real money until about 2019 when I started seeing actual money. That’s because people wanted stuff and they wanted it by the bulk and another thing is I did a lot of stuff for the city. This is a secret about my state there are a lot of people with a lot of businesses, a lot of those with their self-owned stuff, and a lot of those logos I made. That was just me playing around. They’d be like hey you want to see if you could do something for me and I’d say yeah ill do that. But I would make it just kinda showing them something and they wanted it for real to put it on their clothing line. So, a lot of big names around this city came to me for their logos and that ended up bringing in money too.
“I do everything when it comes to design. Right now, I’m working on a shoe project, it’s a breast cancer project that I’m doing. As far as the actual things that I do, I do everything from custom shirts. I make, I sew, I embroider, and I print too. Printing is where I started from. People often ask can you do this, and on my website, you’ll find that customized section where if you want something customized. You might want like a Sweet sixteen such and such on a shirt. There are a lot of custom orders.
“I’m 37 years old and the majority of my customer base it be like twenty to forty-five-year-olds that’s what I see. About 80% of my customers come from the States. I have my out-of-the-country orders. It’s global but not everybody knows. Once again that will change because I’m in this for the long haul.
Andrea: “Slugga by the way what if somebody stepped on those sneakers by mistake of course when ya sporting them, what would you do?”
Slugga: “Whew, I just don’t know!”
