A Plum teen was scrolling through social media one day when he happened upon a shoe design competition that caught his eye.
Inspired, Micah Pierce, 17, entered the Vans “Custom Culture” competition in September that promises the winner $25,000 and mass production of the winning shoe design.
Pierce, a Plum Senior High School senior, now has a little more than 8,000 votes for the design he calls “Fashion Icon,” inspired partly by New York Fashion Week. His design includes colorful women’s products such as clothing, makeup and jewelry.
He hopes to get about 12,000 additional votes before Sunday so he can be one of the top 10 vote-getters. That would qualify his design for the next round: being paired with a Vans design mentor to create the final shoe design.
Judges will choose three favorite shoe designs in December based on creativity, originality and overall execution.
As of Oct. 10, a shoe with illustrated animals and the words “End Speciesism Until All Are Free” had the most votes with nearly 38,000.
The National Honor Society student is excited about the competition, which he sees as a boost to a budding career in art. Pierce also draws superhero cartoons and comic book illustrations.
He said his design took a couple of weeks to draw on paper and digitize before submitting it to Vans.
“I wanted to create a shoe for girls,” he said. “I thought it would be fun.”
He also aspires to creating his own comic book brand, a video game series and animated movies.
Should Pierce win, he would give his earnings to his mom, who was another source of inspiration for his “Fashion Icon” shoe design.
