Jason Mayden Speaks After Shoes He Designed For Kanye West Go Up For Auction: ‘They Were Never Intended To Be Seen By The Public’
Mayden hopes the true story behind the shoe will be included in the conversation. For him, it is not only a shoe to honor Donda. It is a shoe created by a designer who risked it all to show love to another Black creative he admires as he also understands the significance of losing someone like Donda, after the loss of his grandmother.
“They’ve cut out the actual story behind why these things were created. I risked my job,” Mayden said in a follow-up video posted to Instagram. “My colleagues who helped me, Jake Vandam, Gentry Humphrey, Reggie Saunders, they risked their job to go on the line to build this product. This was not briefed, this was not in line, this was a completely separate thing that we did and we built this with our bare hands and sent this to Kanye, sent this to somebody that we was simply saying, ‘Yo bro, a private gift to show you love during a difficult time.’ Cuz we’ve all been there.”
He continued: “I don’t know if any of my followers or anybody in my network knows someone that’s high up at Christie’s, but I refuse to be excluded from this story. I refuse for this to simply be, ‘Oh, this is a shoe made for Kanye’s mom.’ It’s so much deeper than that. It’s so much deeper than that. This was us sending an expression of pure love, Black creative to Black creative. I’m tired of seeing people take Black creativity and exploit it for clout, exploit it for clicks, exploit it for monetary game without giving us proper attribution.”
