Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Artist Spotlight: Dillon DeJesus of DeJesus Customs

The sneaker game is in a bitter conflict between the old school sneakerhead ways and the new school of innovators and game changers. Among the new school sneakerheads stand a new facet to the sneaker game in customizers, the creative genius' behind one of a kind sneaker creations.
As a freshman in the customizing game, 21-year-old Dillon DeJesus of DeJesus Customs is making his mark in the business by drawing from his Chicago roots. For Dillon, art is something he's been involved with throughout his life. In his off time aside from customizing he is a full-time college student studying architecture in Chicago.
Dillon says he started collecting shoes about 5 years ago. His passion for the game evolved when he created drawings and sketches of Jordan's and Nike's to see if he could create a better version. His ambition to make the sketches come to life grew from the lack of access to a majority of hot releases due to a small collective of sneakerheads in Chicago.
"The sneaker scene hasn't really picked up yet in the midwest," Dillon said. "When I first started collecting sneakers it was relatively easy to get a release, but with the way collectors are starting to surface it puts a smile on my face to see more people collecting shoes."
Two big influences on his approach to customizing are music and sports. For example, below is a picture of Galaxy custom LeBron X's inspired by and named after "Enter Galactic" by Kid Kudi. Although the Chicago Bears and Chicago Bulls are teams that Dillion swears by, he also created a pair of Air Jordan 7 "49ers" inspired by his favorite player from the team Colin Kaepernick (pictured below).
A recent custom job that has all eyes on DeJesus Customs are his Trinidad James inspired Air Jordan 4's. The pair was originally intended for a customer that sent in pure money Air Jordan 4's that wanted to see what DeJesus could create. Dillon says he wanted to do something classic, like a black/red colorway, with a touch of something new and different which inspired the addition of Cheetah print and gold accents. A few weeks after posting the picture on instagram, Dillon was contacted by Trinidad James himself to create custom work for the rapper and a few of his friends.
So how does the customizing process work? There are two ways to receive DeJesus Custom work. You can send in your own shoes and pay somewhere between $100-$200 depending on the amount of design work going into it. This process usually takes slightly longer due to travel time in the mail. The second way is to purchase shoes directly from www.dejesuscustoms.org either already done or to be created. This process is faster with a slightly higher cost running between $250-$500. The higher cost is due to the price of the shoe plus design work that needs to be done.
Although Jordan's and Nike's are a frequent product of DeJesus Customs, Dillon says the company is willing and open to doing all kinds of custom shoe work including heels and moccasins.
What can you expect from DeJesus Customs? Take a look at some of his Custom work below that can also be seen on Facebook @DeJesus Customs or instagram @DDeJesus6. Dillon is one customizer that won't be disappearing anytime soon.
"I've only been doing this a little over a year," Dillon said. "I don't plan on stopping anytime soon."

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