Julien Rispoli
SCHOOL
INSTAGRAM PROFILE
instagram.com/julienrispoli/
ABOUT JULIEN's COLLECTION:
Hi, my name is Julien Rispoli, I grew up in Egypt with an Italian dad and an Egyptian mom.
We grew up my sister and I with a lot of middle eastern and European culture, specially the French one… why? I have no idea. All my family speaks French we all went to French schools, infact as soon as I turned 16, I moved to France and started my passion for shoes.
In my first year of high school in Paris I met a guy that loved my collect rare pair of sneakers,
He used to go to a lot of fairs to buy these rare pairs, but I didn’t really like it at first.
But it was my first few month in Paris, and he was one of my very few friends at that time, so I had nothing better to do during the weekends.
Coming from a family of industrials I was craving to know how all these sneakers are manufactured, it was in the back of my mind but didn’t really went deeper in the willing to learn more about it, until the pandemic came.
During the pandemic I came back to Egypt and fulfilled this dream to design, create and learn more about shoes. I started by independently researching the market and exploring the backend of the shoe making industry. Firstly, by shadowing the talent in old-school, hand-crafted shoe workshops to discovering the capabilities and technologies of production at brand name factories. This allowed me to receive a varied foundation where I could start to develop my line with a varied real-world experience.
With all the knowledge I acquired I started to design the sneakers, source the materials and production facilities that would help me realize my vision. Once the production elements and schedule were set, I started to develop my marketing strategy by mainly using the tool of social media. I photographed the samples, set up an Instagram page which generated interest and allowed me to start collecting pre-orders.
Thankfully my once vision was a success, and I was able to sell out the first batch of sneakers that I created. With the experience gained from this project I confidentiality said that I am interested in gaining more knowledge and insight to be able to grow.
after that project I did some internships in factories then I wanted one thing is to enter a 1-year diploma course in Arsutoria Milano. I've been accepted to the school and I learned there everything about shoe from the hand drawing design to the digital ones and the handmade patterns to the digital ones. I met amazing people there, they help me and gave me faith to believe in my dream.
And here I am finalist of Mittlemoda fashion award 2023 in Milan knowing that 3 years ago I knew nothing about shoes…
