Dan “Mache” Gamache is a renowned artist and footwear is his canvas. But arguably his greatest strength is storytelling.
Prior to designing sneakers bearing his name and customizing looks for athletes including four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry and Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts, Mache, too, had a life in sports. He played baseball throughout college, and at one point, Mache stated he was offered a contract by the Cincinnati Reds.
“I knew I was good, but I wasn’t that good. I was very realistic. I wasn’t delusional,” Mache said with a laugh.
To get in shape for baseball, Mache, like other athletes, trapped himself in the gym, which served as inspiration for the latest iteration of his Runner v2. And as expected, the storytelling throughout the shoe was expertly crafted.
For instance, Mache opted for rope laces with black rubber tips for the “Gym” Runner v2, which resembles the rope attachment found in most gyms. And the heel counter is made from textured rubber, a nod to the material that is commonly used on gym floors.
The Mache “Gym” Runner v2 is available now for $290 for preorder at Machecustoms.com. The preorder will remain open until Monday at 12 p.m. ET.
Aside from his own footwear, Mache has remained in conversations when it comes to customs. Most notably, he was tasked with customizing the Air Jordan 1 “Bred” cleat for Hurts, which the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback laced up ahead of his Super Bowl 59 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.
Here, Mache offers a deep dive on the “Gym” Runner v2, his Super Bowl moment and what’s to come with his original footwear designs.
You’ve recently become reacquainted with the gym, which inspired the latest iterarion of your Runner v2 shoe. How did this love for fitness get reignited?
“Living this artist lifestyle, being more sedentary or traveling and doing all these things, I just didn’t have the time for it. I was still playing softball and pickup basketball and things like that, but over the last 10 years, I didn’t make the fitness as much of a priority. Over time, I realized I let myself go. I went to All-Star Weekend for MLB in L.A. [in 2022], I was commissioned to do cleats for Derek Jeter. It was me and Derek, we did all this video and stuff, and I saw the photos and the video of how big I was and it was embarrassing. That flipped a switch in me. I was like, ‘I need to take control of this.’ I was successful in my career and that was great, but my health was not in a good spot. Literally that next week when I got back from L.A., I went to the gym, got a trainer and got myself back in the gym. I didn’t a trainer to teach me how to do the things, it was more just for accountability to keep me from self-sabotage and having someone to keep tabs on me.”
Why was it important to tell this “gym” story through footwear?
“When I’m telling stories for any of my stuff, I always have some sort of connection to it, whether it’s a place I travel to, a theme that I was passionate about, a team. I would never just put out a shoe to tell a story for the sake of telling the story. Over the years, as training has gone on, I wore all kinds of shoes. I would wear the [Mache] Runners, I would wear the lifting shoes, I’m big on the Rad Global shoes. I’m big on [Nike] Metcons and all that stuff, but I hated having to change shoes for cardio and for lifting and different things. I would wear my own Runners, which were great and versatile, but I felt like why not tell us a story with that? I said let’s figure out a way to make the v2 to make be a little more performance centric and choose materials that will hold up better within workouts and is something that I can wear doing a cardio session and doing deadlifts and not have to go switch out my shoes. I still love wearing all those different things, but just to have something with my own brand, it just made sense. And obviously you and I have talked about the possibility of doing it was cool to go through a couple iterations and material changes, seeing things that work, things that didn’t work. And, finally, we got here.”
What are the elements of this shoe are most synonymous with the gym?
“Besides the barbell on the tag? (Laughs) Going through the materials on the heel, I initially was thinking of doing the rubber mats when you’re dropping plates and things like that. Most gyms have those rubber floors. And then for the toe, I initially wanted to do a grip tape material, kind of like the ‘Slam City’ [Nike] SBs were, but I also remember that over time those of got torn up, so we went away from that. I wanted a rubber that could hold up. I don’t like stretching barefoot because I like to have my toes down, and if I’m doing cable rows on the ground, my toes are always dragging, so I wanted something that was tough but also not so stiff that it was cumbersome, like having a steel-toe shoe. We found a texturized rubber that has enough give but is still sturdy enough to hold up against workouts. And for the mesh, I wanted breathability. I originally went with a different mesh, it was a bigger mesh, but it just didn’t hold up and I think it would be more susceptible to ripping, so we went for more of a padded mesh that will hold up a lot better in the gym. I’ve been wearing these things for the last month-and-a-half or so and they still hold up great, which is a testament to what we were trying to do.”
You designed the Runner v2 as a lifestyle shoe, but how does it perform in the gym?
“The thing that’s good with the v2 is it has a flat bottom. My v1, that Vibram tooling was very squishy. It wasn’t very good for stability. It was great for walking around, but for lifts and things like that, the v2 is more of a firm ride. It gives you a little more stability in terms of lifts and things like that. If you’re doing deadlifts, or any kind of leg days, you want to have a flatter bottom. The v2 was a perfect bottom to be versatile enough to have the flexibility for the running but also to handle those lifts. I remember Seth Rollins, the WWE guy, he was big on the flat bottoms, not only for wrestling but for his CrossFit stuff. We were trying to find shoes to have him work with me and the v2 was it was one that he liked, so I knew that I was going down the right path.”
Looking ahead, what other stories are you looking to tell with the v2?
“We’re going to go back into travel. That was a big thing when we started with the v1, doing traveling, hidden locations, that kind of stuff. What we’re doing as almost a way to bring back the story is we’re going to do a passport-inspired Runner. Literally with the holograms of the passport and the leather and the stamping. We’re taking different ways to tell that story. And we have a couple other little things in the works of how to keep the story going past just one pair. We went off path a little bit with all the different collaborations and stories and stuff, and we want to get centered again. We’ll start telling more stories with inspirations of different locations and things like that. Besides the v2, we got more Promenades, we got more golf shoes coming. The reception on the golf shoes was awesome last year. When I did that, I wasn’t hesitant, but I didn’t know how it was going to be received because I’m not like Eastside Golf. I didn’t want to come up like an outsider, so I was just seeding them out to friends of mine that are golfers to get feedback and see what they thought, and they really f–ked with them. They were like, ‘These are the most comfortable golf shoes I’ve ever worn, and they’re dope.’ I felt like I was on to something, so when the first shoe came out, it was very overwhelming how positive the feedback was from people that got them from aesthetics, performance, all that stuff. I was like let’s keep this going, so we have more colorways and stories and stuff for that. The next colorway of the golf shoe and the Promenade are coming out next month to give it a little chance to get some of the snow to melt. It’s really encouraging that there’s so many other ways besides just doing Runners and whatever to expand it.”
How do you split time between designing your own footwear and customizing shoes?
“It’s frantic, man. Especially in the NFL season. It’s two separate businesses. With [my businesses], for the most part, it’s mostly me. I hate delegating. It’s probably part ego that I feel like I know better — which I don’t always. But I have a vision of how I want things carried out and I feel like telling the stories of the shoe with the materials and the colors, that’s what I’m good at. That’s where the customizer will never go away, whether it’s the packaging or the design. I’ll mock up what I’m doing for the packaging and then send it off to a couple graphic designer friends that can polish it up because that’s what they do. I can paint a portrait of you, but to get it digitized and do all that stuff, that’s out of my wheelhouse. When I see the vision of how to present it, doing these videos and photos, it’s exhausting, man because at the end of the day, I’m worrying about Super Bowl cleats, but I’m also worrying about my next release, I’m doing both, bouncing back and forth. November through January is time of the year usually when the diet and the exercise goes to the wayside because I’m so drowning in cleats and my own brand. But it’s my company, I’d rather be doing it for myself than working for someone else, so there’s definitely some empowerment. As I’m talking to you I’m working on some Dunks for WWE wrestlers and then another WWE wrestler is coming because now it’s WrestleMania season, and baseball season starting so we’re starting with that.”
Do you find more joy in customizing sneakers or designing your own shoes?
“Depends on the day. Some days I really just want to get down and start painting a portrait on a pair of shoes and other days I want to be on my iPad and just churn out stuff. Right now, I’m working on a pair for the women’s [WWE] champ [Tiffany Stratton] and I’m excited about because I never worked her before. Maybe the project is what gets me more excited more anything else, or who I’m working with or what the instance is. Even doing the cleats for Jalen Hurts for Jordan Brand [for Super Bowl 59], it was a very simple custom but the magnitude and how big of a moment was going to be for them, and for Jordan Brand to even hit me up and actually acknowledge that they had a customizer do it is huge. So that part was exciting. But I also miss the days of these players like [Stefon] Diggs would have me do portraits on cleats. That doesn’t happen anymore. But I also forget that I could just do a custom for myself, I don’t need to have a client hit me up to do it. I see all these new custom artists that are amazing, great artists that are inspiring and of get me excited to pull out the paint again as opposed to just worrying about what my next Runner is. And that’s a whole other challenge. As a competitor that played sports his whole life, I see all these brands and independents and it’s inspiring, but also I’m competitive and I want to beat them (laughs).”
Speaking of the Super Bowl, what did customizing Jalen Hurts’ Air Jordan 1 “Bred” cleats do for you professionally? You’re always in the conversation when it comes to customization, but there is no larger stage in U.S. sports than that.
“It was more personal accomplishment more than anything. To have Jason Mayden and Leo Chang and all these people in my email chat, it’s cool as shit to see people that you respect, and obviously you know the names forever for all the projects and stuff they’ve done to look to me to help them get their story told at the finish line. It’s dope. It is validating personally because they see you as someone that they trust because they don’t outsource a lot of stuff, and when they do, they don’t put it out there that other people did it. It was cool to make it be a partnership as opposed to just being a hired gun to get something done.”
About the Author
Peter Verry is the Senior News and Features Editor for Athletic and Outdoor at Footwear News. He oversees coverage of the two fast-paced and ultracompetitive markets, which includes conducting in-depth interviews with industry leaders and writing stories on sneakers and outdoor shoes. He is a lifelong sneaker addict (and shares his newest purchases via @peterverry on Instagram) and spends most of his free time on a trail. He holds an M.A. in journalism from Hofstra University and can be reached at peter.verry@footwearnews.com.
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