Myles O’Meally Hits The Ground Running

I’m seven hours behind Asia, so when I wake up in the morning, I have a window to talk about communication and design. The middle part of the afternoon, I catch up with friends; in the evening, I work with people in Europe.

My business is incorporated in Singapore and our production is in China. Normally I would go back and forth to check on production, and visit Antwerp to work hands-on with Raf, but right now I’m at home. It just means I have to make really good tech packs.

When I was young, there were two things I was really interested in: P.E., and graphic design. I played a lot of sports when I was a kid, especially tennis. When I was 18, I was trying to go pro. I did it for a year before realizing I couldn't make a living. I did an undergrad in Sports Technology, but my Masters was in Design Engineering. That’s where I learned the core skill of product design through the angle of engineering. I’m not a designer in the sense of, you give me a piece of paper and I draw you a beautiful image. I come from more of a construction background. I’ve always been interested in how things are made, how products are constructed. My passion for sneakers and design accumulated into the best job a graduate could ask for: Nike.

In Amsterdam, I was working in a market-driven, consumer-focused category, exploring how we interpret trends onto products. For three years in Saigon, I was working as an engineer and developer for the global category: performance football cleats for Europe and North America, cross-fit, baseball, special projects for Off-White. It was a wide range; way more technical. I was in the factory everyday.

I would receive a design and make two or three different versions. I would create a sample, send the prototype back for feedback, and from there, we would talk about what I had in mind for execution. It was a constant back and forth across time zones.

I was in the center of communication then, first talking to design and marketing teams in Portland, and later to development in Saigon. You're like a translator, balancing both ends, trying to please the designer and athlete with a product they want to create, but also understanding the limitations of ideas. Both teams have different desires, speak different ways, have different needs, but you still need to hit deadlines. The calendar doesn’t stop.

Nike is an amazing brand, and I learned a lot from them; still, Nike is so big, and my role was quite technical. Yes, I’m a developer, but I also enjoy design, market research, building moodboards, and the end of the project, where you have the launch party. There wasn’t a job like that at Nike for me. So I left to set up my own version of the work I wanted to do

I was on a non-compete for eight months, so I had time to figure out my plans. When you work for Nike, you can be in a bubble. You don’t really promote your work, you don’t make your services or skills available. I went to Paris and saw where the trends were, what people were talking about. We all saw this amalgamation of sportswear and luxury come together—I had to figure out how to tap into it.

A friend told me that Raf Simons was looking to design his own footwear line, and he put my name forward. When we first spoke, Raf was also in a transition period, leaving Calvin Klein and his partnership with Adidas. I met him at his Antwerp studio for what could have been an interview, but it was quite casual. To work with Raf, the developer needs to be able to interpret his ideas and references correctly. What he's trying to achieve is very out there.

The relationship grows when there’s more trust. Raf is very open-minded. He understands and respects youth culture, and because of his experience, he’s able to take references from other eras. He’s also just a super nice guy.

Because I’ve worked across so many different categories, I saw so many ways of making footwear. That knowledge all goes back to the understanding of execution: the plates seen in the range are made with the same technology seen in football cleats. It doesn’t function the same way—you don’t play football with a Raf shoe—but the raw ingredients are the same.

At Nike, I learned that style is a bonus when designing performance sneakers; in fashion, performance is in the peripheral. With Raf, the concept stems from the idea that it needs to fit and feel like a runner. One of the first things he told me was: “I don’t want to make pretty shoes that people can’t wear.”

This is the moment when I started thinking about developing design-focused footwear. A good developer gets 100% in both design and performance. When I was working on Off-White, for example, it was style first; the function wasn’t that important. I enjoyed the process because I was exercising an artistic side.

Many of these fashion brands have stuck to making formal shoes: they work with amazing cobblers, but when it comes to making a sneaker—it’s completely different. I know how to make sneakers but I don’t know how to make formal shoes, so I also faced some challenges, like time. We began designing the product in July and showed in January. After sampling a few rounds and development steps, we had four to five months to make a whole collection, which normally takes twelve to eighteen months. The high fashion calendar is absurd. We’re already working on Fall/Winter 2021 now.

It was crazy how fast things happened. I started working with Raf in July 2019. Six months later, we were showing his inaugural footwear collection. It was a nice moment, but I know the product can be better. I’m excited because with more time, we can continue to improve. There’s still a lot to expand on, but I’m in no rush.