Giant Step : Gang Members Join Forces to Market Own Brand of Shoes

Los Angeles’ street gangs, which have been known to kill over a pair of athletic shoes, now hope to make a killing by designing and selling a brand of their own.

Combining urban street culture and unabashed capitalism, gang members from the Eastside and South-Central have joined forces with a local sneaker company to create a new line of mid-priced footwear they will sell in 20 outlets to be opened in the year ahead in depressed areas throughout the city.

The first batch of sneakers, being manufactured in Korea, features shoes with Afrocentric color schemes of green, black, red and yellow. Another model is covered entirely in patterns of red and blue--the colors of the Bloods and Crips--with a tag on the heel reading TRUCE.

“They fresh, man,” said Ray-Ray, 24, an ex-Crip from Watts, who was hired as a design consultant and is being trained to manage one of the retail stores. “I mean, people gonna say: ‘Damn, where you got those shoes from?’ This business could take care of me for the rest of my life.”

The project, which was formally unveiled Thursday amid great fanfare at a Los Angeles Athletic Club luncheon, is one of the few concrete job opportunities offered to gang members in the aftermath of the recent riots. It also marks a breakthrough for many Crips and Bloods factions, who have sought to transform their truce into a push for economic and political clout.

The jobs program--sponsored by Eurostar Inc., a privately held athletic shoe company that has been headquartered in South Los Angeles since 1984--was praised by Rebuild L.A. czar Peter Ueberroth at Thursday’s gathering as an example of “doing it right.” Mayor Tom Bradley and Gov. Pete Wilson had representatives there to present official commendations, and President Bush sent a letter applauding the participants for “reaching out to those in need.”

“We’re not trying to save the world,” said Alan Isaacs, a former salesman for Nike who defected to Eurostar last month to lead its national sales campaign. “We’re just doing, in our heart and business sense, what we think is right.”

Eurostar already operates 11 retail stores from Oxnard to Santa Ana under the name Warehouse Shoe Sale and serves as the exclusive distributor of L.A Gear in Mexico, reporting sales last year of $57.4 million.

The company has been working closely with former football star Jim Brown and Dolores Mission’s pastor, Father Gregory J. Boyle, who have referred youths from their anti-gang programs to the firm.

So far, Eurostar has only two ex-gangsters on its payroll. But executives have agreed to pay rent, supply merchandise and offer training--roughly a $600,000 investment, or $30,000 for each outlet--so that dozens more gang members can eventually take charge of their own shoe stores. The number of jobs depends on how well the sneakers sell.

Even though the new line of street-smart sneakers will not be available for at least a month, the two full-time employees--both members of Brown’s Amer-I-Can program--are already doing a brisk business selling shoes from the rest of Eurostar’s inventory under a gray tent in a lot near 88th Place and Figueroa Street.

“Rising to the top with positive experience,” said High-T, 28, who has been running the operation there with Ray-Ray for about two weeks. In that time, High-T estimates, they have sold an average of about 60 pairs of shoes a day at about $25 a pair, which he believes will soon equate to wages of close to $15 an hour.

Three other former gang members from Brown’s program--Dice, Tyrone and Wig Out--were paid by the company to perform a rap jingle, which features verses such as, “If you wanna rock fast/ If you wanna rock far/ Let me hip you to a shoe called Eurostar.” Brown is endorsing the shoes.

The relationship of gangsters to the multibillion-dollar sneaker industry has frequently been a source of controversy, with shoe companies being accused of targeting poor, inner-city kids who can ill-afford to buy footwear priced in three digits. In some cases, gangs have adopted shoes’ names as their own, or worn shoes whose names have been construed as a slur on a rival gang. For example, some Crips have redefined the initials of British Knights footwear to stand for “Blood Killers.”

Eurostar--which peppers its advertising material with such socially conscious slogans as “Quality with a cause” and “Where community meets opportunity”--insists that its shoes fall into a different category.

For starters, they say, they are committed to keeping the prices low, usually in the $40 range, with no shoes exceeding $69. The various models also will have names that reflect individual empowerment, with consideration being given to such logos as “The Motivator,” “The Educator” and “The Facilitator.”

“We feel we have all the correct ingredients,” Isaacs said. “All we have to do is put it in the oven, at the right temperature, and I think we’ll have a very tasty meal for everyone involved.”