story

"I'm always attracted to people that visually inspire me and I always try to do that for others. We don't really try to be anybody else but ourselves. My name is Mia Lee. I am a visual artist. I'm a painter."

"I'm a designer, and I just make whatever I want. And I'm from the South Side of Chicago. I'm Don C, also a designer repping the South Side of Chicago."

"Visionary to me is someone who thinks of ideas that are not currently in the marketplace or currently being used, somebody that I think has a wide imagination and..."

"...be able to present something to make the world a better place for the future. Someone who isn't afraid to take chances, especially if they're these big ideas that sometimes people are afraid to put out there."

"Visionaries, kind of really tune out that noise and put out something that they feel strongly about. I got started painting because my mother is an artist."

"My grandmother is an artist. My other grandmother is a seamstress, so it's in my bloodline. When I was coming up, people didn't support people that wanted to be visual or creative artists."

"So here in Chicago, the only outlet was like music. I wasn't very good musically, so I always just tried to learn how I could add value in other aspects. Being able to just want to work on promotional materials or album covers..."

"...or styling people for video shoots. And then I transitioned from music to apparel. I felt like I took that leap of saying, man, this is what I want to do and this is what I want to add to the game..."

"...is doing apparel and make people look fresh. I'd have to say our dreams were big, but we couldn't aspire to be able to really be influencing people all over the planet."

"People from up north would say we was country, people from country would say we was weird. I feel like we are just the pioneers of cool, honestly. I've only bought 1's from one place my entire life and they still selling 1's."

"So I feel like that was an iconic place on the south side because we could just walk there and get it. Every first day of school religiously getting a fresh pair because..."

"...what are the other options, honestly? It's simple but it's not. Air Force 1's for me, I first discovered the shoe 1990 because I would see Air Force 1's before, but I feel like..."

"...in the late eighties they was a more East coast shoe. I always tell this story about a guy named Dave Jeff. He was like a style icon that I went to school with, Kenwood Academy."

"Man, he had on some black high tops with the white swoosh Air Force 1's and then we had the strap hanging off the back and I was like, yo, that just looked so swag."

"And then I started noticing everybody wore all white Air Force 1's with different color checks. So I started looking for pairs that were colored with a white check just to be like different."

"It's just something that I was able to express my individualism through, but also be part of the crew. And I'll even learn how to take the swoosh off, color them with my mom's fingernail polish and then put it back on there..."

"...or draw a logo on there. So it's an avenue for people to express themselves. So as long as you got that, that's a form of freedom."

Visionaries

Don C & Mia Lee