You run a brand creating beautifully designed running garms, do you run? and if so let’s start things off with what’s your favourite place to run?
I started running properly during lockdown, like many others, and I’m blessed with two routes for different reasons. My first is to go East from Shoreditch, along the canal and around Victoria Park. I grew up in Vicky Park Village, learnt to tap dance in The Royal Inn and used to ice skate on the pond in the 80’s (global warming has put a stop to that) so this whole areas means a lot to me, happy childhood memories. My next is South, along Shoreditch High Street, through the city and towards the Thames and the bridges. On a good day this is glorious and it’s easy to forget how blessed I am living in London. My dad was on the HMS Belfast during the Second World War, so once again, this route has a lot of sentimentality for me. Hard to beat London for running routes.
Have you got an all time favourite shoe? Or maybe a couple if you can’t narrow it down
My all time favourite, hands down is the first ever release of the Nike Air Zoom Spiridon, I had all colours around ’97 – ’98 and used to wear odd shoes as two colourways were very similar (white, navy, yellow and white, purple, silver). It’s been rereleased a few times but the swoosh is missing the glitter finish and the toe box just ain’t the same, if you know you know!! The next closest thing to this for me was the first release of the Nike Flyknit Racer in 2012, also had all the colours and funnily enough, both shoes were ground breaking running shoes at their time, never really thought about it like that.
What’s your favourite film?
This is too hard, I like too many from too many genres, so I’d have to say a series – The Last Dance – the nostalgia, the goosebumps, the music, the style and the insight into the greatest ever sporting human being to have lived – I wanna be like Mike.
Favourite thing to listen to at the moment?
Winston Surfshirt is a vibe, but I’ve created a Spotify playlist called Steezy Peezy, dunno what genre you’d call it, probs Neo Soul, but it’s a mix of Franc Moody, Jungle, Pip Millet, Cleo Seoul, Iniko, Jitwam, Yazmin Lacey, Two Another, etc and then I run to Tech House playlists from Broken Records – watch this space.
Any favourite books we should check out?
Murakami, but that’s an obvious one for runners, my good friend Mikey Kratzer has recently suggested – Racing The Clock by Bern Heinrich.