Laces in Places: Lorenzo Brunetti

There’s no doubt about it - getting a job in the sneaker industry is no easy feat. While passion and experience obviously play a huge part in the process, there are other barriers to landing your dream role that we believe are made to be broken. In the UK, the sneaker scene is notoriously London-centric, but it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, there’s a huge amount of industry talent based outside of our nation’s capital. For our latest series, we decided that we wanted to shine a light on those key players and prove that wherever you live, getting a job in the industry is 100% possible.

For our first installment of Laces in Places, we travel to Newcastle to meet Lorenzo Brunetti - the designer behind all your favourite END. Clothing collaborations. Here, Lorenzo tells us about his reasons for moving away from London, his role at END. and shares his top tips for breaking into the industry…

Hi! My name is Lorenzo Brunetti. I’m actually from Stoke, which is not the most Italian place in the world, but that’s where I was brought up. I'm currently a collaborations designer at END. Clothing, situated in Newcastle. In my role, I create concepts and designs for our collaborations with sportswear and luxury brands. I moved (to Newcastle) about three years ago from another job in London, where I had worked for about three to four months. I decided to move away because it was just so expensive. END. was my first proper design job, although I’ve done a few internships in different places over the years.

I've always worked in menswear shops. As soon as I was in college I had to get a job, so I thought a lot about where I could go and what I could do. There were only two menswear shops in Stoke at the time, so I started working at a store called Infinities. They stocked Paul Smith, Stone Island, C.P., but also a lot of terrace adidas styles - there's a lot of that terrace culture in Stoke. We also did a bit of Nike, and Reebok as well - most of the sportswear brands. Most of my learnings came from the shop floor - just being around the product all the time. You really get a lot of knowledge when you're around the product every day. Right now I can't keep up with the number of products that are coming out on END.'s website, but if I worked next to it, I'd probably know it all.

That was the first stepping stone for me, for getting into the industry. After I finished college, I went to Churches - the shoemakers, so I was in footwear, but more formal footwear. I lived in Northampton for about 12 months and I was in the factory learning how to make shoes for them. I then knew I wanted to be in the footwear industry, but I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do yet. I ended up going to university in Manchester, where I studied menswear design and technology. It was more apparel-based, but I learned a lot about design processes at university and I was grateful for my tutors. After that, I did a couple of internships - one at G-Star and another at Omar Afridi. Both were apparel brands but they taught me a lot about how to work with people and in teams.

If we go down to the roots though, my mum and dad were always creative. They were antique dealers so I was always around art and pottery and I think this definitely pushed me into creative design and thinking.

I was working at quite a high-end brand at the time in London, but it was so expensive to live down there and was really full on. On top of that, it was mostly garment production that I was dealing with, and I wanted to go more into footwear design as well as apparel. I started looking for jobs outside of London where I could actually probably afford to live. I came across the role at END. and applied. Three weeks later I found myself in Newcastle having an interview and then, later on, got accepted to start as a collaborations designer within the collaborations team.

I was always open to the idea of collaboration. I joined the team when lots of collaboration was going on with other brands and stores, and I saw that END. was a fairly new company where I could grow with the team and grow the collaborations side of the business. I’m a big fan of what BEAMS do with collaborations - I always think the product looks great and speaks for itself, as well as the way they shoot the product. So I guess, looking at what they do, I really wanted to try that myself and do it the END. way to see if we can make lasting collaborations with multiple brands.

Fast forward a few years and we're really lucky to have the relationships we have with our luxury and sportswear partners. They're really good people to work with and it's a nice collaborative process that is going from strength to strength. We're doing store exclusives, the stuff that goes on END. Launches, and stuff that goes on the main site. It's a very busy environment but I really enjoy it.

I start my mornings by making a coffee, and we go through any emails that come in. Then we always go through the same list to make sure we've ticked everything off because there are so many different moving parts to each project. We also have calls with brands about new silhouettes and what's coming up next year that we can work on, which is always really exciting. The rest of the team is also super involved in the collaboration side of things, you've got features, the email lads, the launches team, brand activation, social - all these things feed into your job. So it's really cool, not only are you collaborating with brands but you're really collaborating with everyone that you work with.

Sometimes we have shoot days for the upcoming products so we can be away on a shoot at least once in the month with the creative team, and that’s a really nice thing to be able to do. Being able to design the product but also have a say in the creation of the assets is something I feel is hard to come by in other jobs, but luckily at END. we get the full 360.

There's been a couple, but my favourite one was probably the Reebok Beatnik. I was obsessed with the Needles Beatnik when that came out, and I think it was a Japan-exclusive. My manager and I were in Portland, Oregon and there was so much Sasquatch memorabilia over there. With Reebok being American-owned now, I just thought "Right, I could take that and put it on something a bit wacky."

Obviously, the Beatnik silhouette is a bit of a funny one anyway. It's not like an Air Force 1, it's a one-off, but it's nice. So I just put that Yeti vibe on it - you know, you could play with the fur lining, hairy suedes. We did a brown version and a grey version and people loved it because of the novelty. I know people in America are quite serious about Sasquatch-watching so you did have to be a bit careful, but people really loved that concept because it was fun.

It was great to experience what the working culture was like in the different cities, I felt like London was very fast-paced and I didn’t have time for my personal life, but Amsterdam was amazing - a great city to meet new people in the design industry and very open. I think anyone should move around if they can. Luckily when I went to Europe I had ERASMUS funding. I don't think they do that anymore, but if you're a university student and you get an internship in a different place, you should just go. It's normal to be nervous, but the only way you're going to get over it is just to go there and deal with it. I dealt with it, and I made some amazing friends and had some great experiences.

You get to learn about different countries' work ethics too. When I was in Amsterdam I found that the Dutch don't really beat around the bush. If you do something wrong in the Netherlands, they'll tell you straight. I learned from that, and now I'm a bit like that and it saves a lot of time. You learn about the different working cultures, the different business models of different brands, and how they deal with wholesale, marketing and design, because they all have different ways of doing it. Moving around is really important, it builds your character as a person and you'll learn a lot of things that you can take into your next job.

Consider the balance of work and where you're living, and make sure you look at the area first. You need to weigh it up. I looked at Newcastle - I'd never been in my life, but I thought it looked like a nice city and I was already a fan of END. You definitely have to go on your taste and what you want though - it's a personal choice. When you move to a company, they are usually pretty welcoming, so you'll meet mates pretty easily. Being in a new working environment can be hard, but it naturally gets easier. Moving about looks great on your CV too, it proves to employers that you aren’t scared to move somewhere else and shows you’ve worked in different environments.

Be into your product. I think a lot of people - when they're hiring - they can tell if you're into a product by the way you talk about it. They can tell if you're clued up on it. Obviously, your degree and experience are important, but product knowledge is the main thing. As long as you're passionate about it - I mean, for me my job doesn't feel like a job, and when you get to that stage you know that you've got the balance right. Just be really into your stuff.

Aside from that, another important thing in my opinion is hands-on experience. There are a lot of people without degrees that are just as talented as people with one, so don’t let that put you off if you don’t have one - there are always ways around this and you will find them if you look hard enough. If anyone ever needs help with this I'm always happy to answer questions!

You know what? I love Mephistos. I wear them all the time because they're so comfy. Concepts did the CCM-96 Mephisto, and I would love to do one of them. Obviously, the audience isn't massive, but that's my personal one because I love Mephisto.

Otherwise, it's got to be Nike. We haven't done one yet. A Nike collab would be nice but we'll just have to see how we get on over the next couple of years and see if anything happens.

Want to see more from Lorenzo Brunetti? Check out his latest creations over at END.