Interview with RTFKT

Published in

WHALE Members

7 min readJan 6, 2021

This interview originated in the $WHALE discord server https://discord.gg/whale and is available to watch on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFBUFmWz8NY

Who is RTFKT?

RTFKT is a collective of creators pushing the boundaries of next generation sneakers. Combining pop-culture, gaming and Esports with first-class craftsmanship, RTFKT conceptualize and create both virtual and physical collectible sneakers for the world to enjoy. Founders Benoit, Kris and Steven recently sat down with the Whale community for a chat.

Tell us about yourself

We started in January 2020. I [Benoit] was the brand and marketing director for the Fanatic Esports team. During my time there, I encountered Kris, who is one of the most prolific skin designers on Counterstrike, and together we adapted those skins onto sneakers. Kris had previously worked in the hip-hop, music and film industries, and had even directed a few movies. Steven is a digital marketing and sneakers expert, who has previously set up a successful automation company for Supreme to help people buy gear without waiting times. He also has a sustainable fashion brand that has collaborated with Microsoft, Minecraft and Gears of War. We eventually crossed paths and the rest is history.

How are you competing with the big sneaker brands?

The contemporary sneaker market is quite boring. There are some iconic shoe silhouettes, that repeatedly receive new colorways. Companies like Nike that focus on profits, know that manufacturing sneakers is costly, so it’s way more efficient to set up all the machinery for one model and just change colorways and do simple adjustments. We can see the boredom in the market. And that’s our niche. We create new, unique experiences for the sneaker audience that tugs at their imaginations, giving them new ways to express their passion and style. A lot of people in the market also grew up playing games, so their imagination and their aesthetic expectations are much wider than the average 20 years ago. So that’s the gap in the market we are trying to fill, which is making the community excited, even traditional sneaker heads.

When you buy the physical sneakers, do you get the Augmented Reality version as well?

So far, all physical sneakers come with a little code where you can try on the digital version. We also added an augmented reality element to the box. We made the box an image tracker, which augments it so that people can make some cool content when they receive the product. Unboxing is huge on the internet and in the sneaker community, so we wanted our unboxing experience to be unique by having a mix of physical and digital elements.

Talk us through your first sneaker creation, Iron man

We always like to follow pop culture trends or geek and video game references. At the time of our first sneaker creation, Avengers was at the height of its popularity. We thought about doing a whole sneaker series based on Avengers Intellectual Property. For example, Black Panther, Hulk, Iron Man, etc, but unfortunately, we didn’t get through all of them. But the first one obviously was Iron Man, because he is our favourite. We wanted to design a sneaker that looks like it could be functional, that Tony Stark would wear, but also caters to the streetwear scene.

We also wanted to show off our long-term vision with the first creation. When we create these RTFKTs, we want people to be able to use them and flex them digitally. So, we thought using Augmented Reality (AR) to allow people to create content with these RTFKTs was a great idea, which led to that first funny video of me. Everyone thought it was Nicolas Cage by the way. We gained 2 to 3 million views on it which kicked off RTFKT nicely.

What’s the craziest idea for a sneaker you have had?

We thought it would be cool to create a prototype where you have screens on your shoes, and you can link it to digital objects that you own that basically streams the design that you have onto the sneaker. We wanted to create a product where the looks can be changed, reducing the need to purchase a new product each time. This concept of screens was particularly enticing because the technologies are already flexible and accessible. We’re still working on it, because it’s not quite there yet to make it really, really good.

Are there any sneakers based on Esports?

Yep! One was created to celebrate the Fortnite World Cup. The bone series is also based on the popular cosmetic skin in Fortnite, called the bone trooper. We knew that a lot of the audience would react positively to a bones series given the in-game popularity. This series is cool too, because we use a rarity model similar to what you see in games. We dropped legendary, epic and rare models. This allowed us to keep up with the sneaker industry trend of having scarcity, while providing a base model that was affordable to everyone. It was a total hit. The 150 pairs of the base model sold out instantly.

How do you create these sneakers?

It starts off with sketches of ideas and conceptualising it through 3D modelling. After we add textures, we create our digital content with it. When we get to physical production, we buy a Jordan One for the sole and we remove the whole upper and remake it. The process normally takes 40 hours, however the bones series took 60 hours, because all the bones are hand stitched; over 8000 stitches per pair. Pretty crazy? This is a shoe that a company like Nike or any of the big guys wouldn’t make. We also made a 3D printed bone swoosh with the RTFKT logo that was moulded in press. There’s a lot of craftsmanship that goes into shoes like this.

Any kicks for girls?

We are working on a female sneaker concept that we will share early next year, but we don’t have any girl focussed sneakers right now. Rasa, our 3d prototype expert, was the one who suggested creating sneakers for girls, and it’s going to be a really special design, but that’s all I can give away now.

Talk us through your recent collaboration with Apex Legends

We initially created a bunch of proof of concepts for games that we posted online. The Apex legends one took off by storm and went super viral. We eventually got approached by EA to do an official collaboration. We ran a giveaway which some lucky fans won, and used the scarcity model that we previously discussed, so they are very rare. EA also sent it to a bunch of their celebrity gamers like Bryson Tiller and Murder Beats (who’s a really big hip hop producer who’s produced for Ariana Grande and Jordan Fisher). So yeah, we’re really excited about this collaboration.

What’s your experience regarding cryptocurrency?

We were very interested in blockchain from the start. It’s a new type of economy, a new type of currency. We believe that the kids today and in the future are going to be using a digital economy. Though we were always a bit careful with how we used blockchain because the game studios we work with are wary of blockchain.

But with COVID-19, the digital art space in cryptocurrencies really accelerated. We followed what was happening on these platforms. Eventually, we decided it was time to test the space. We chose the cyber sneaker to be our inaugural NFT because of how viral it went. It was a great success. It was quite funny though. We got a bid of $24,000 which we were hyped about, but it was pulled because the collector thought Elon Musk had actually worn the sneakers. Luckily, it still went to a great collector.

What’s your next biggest project?

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) designed sneaker series called X. We designed an AI that paints in a way that is not humanely possible. We think that’s interesting conversation to have in the future, around AI and machine learning. We’re launching one sneaker auction initially with 10 different stages of evolution, and any bids trigger a different stage of evolution. The shoe starts all white and the more people that bid on it, the more the AI paints. In addition, we’ll be making a special Sandbox avatar and Blankos skin for the winner of the auction.