Calling on a Friend | BILLY Footwear

Given the growing possibility that we may actually be on Oxygen's reality television show we need to actually show that our shoe concept has merit. Up until this point it has just been an idea thought up in my head and inked out through Adobe Illustrator by Darin. We need a real example that can be touched and actually tested. Emily, my fiancé Hillary's older sister, bought me a Sanuk shoe that we can experiment on. The reason I am particularly drawn to the Sanuk is the raw seam edge around the upper seems like the perfect way to incorporate a zipper.

I reached out to my friend, Mike Gaeir, owner of 22 Manufacturing (22mfg.com) based just outside of Portland, Oregon, on March 16 to see if he could help with the concept-verification-production. Mike did us a solid and agreed to help. With the green light, we sent him our Sanuk shoes and zippers and let him go to town.

Today he sent some progress pictures. It looks like it should work. I hope so! We got a lot riding on this.