Getting started seemed simple enough. We started by listing out a few basic questions we wanted to get to work on:

• what trend were we betting on?
• what were our design inspirations?
• how could we build a DIY prototype?

Our thesis was pretty simple. We felt strongly that the game of golf had the potential to explode in popularity and with that would introduce a new wave of consumers seeking alternatives to the products currently in market.

We felt there were basically two options in the market for apparel:

• traditionalist
• performance

We personally had been looking for something different. Something that felt “cool” and represented our style a bit more. For FHADE, our goal was to develop golf footwear for this new demographic of consumer. It was intentionally not mainstream.

We accompanied this slide with a short write up of what we were trying to do:

FHADE Golfwear is a new brand meant to embody the next generation of golf apparel. FHADE Golfwear represents the new wave of golfer - one who’s game, style and work ethic speak for themselves. We aim to create footwear that you’d be proud to wear on and off the course. We marry design excellence with premier performance, empowering golfers to play as good as they look. Much like the famed golf shot from which the name is derived, we take a new approach to the way should you should look, while playing the game we all have come to love.

It felt like a great start. Both Dan and I were aligned on a desired end state. Now we started thinking about the type of shoe we wanted to go out and make.

Once again, we gathered inspiration. We scoured the internet and social media for shoes that felt like they fit our design thinking.

Once we landed with the general aesthetic of the shoe we wanted to build, we started thinking about how we (actually us) could build a prototype in days, not weeks.

Next, we will walk you through that process of making our first DIY prototype.