Jennifer Ford is celebrating 20 years of Premium Items.
Jennifer Ford didn’t got down to make historical past. She simply liked sneakers. Rising up on Houston’s Northside, her sixth-grade self shared two pairs of Air Jordan 4s together with her older sister, swapping black and white colours to stretch their modest assortment. That childhood love advanced into one thing larger: Premium Items, a boutique that stands as a cultural landmark as the primary and solely Black girl–owned sneaker retailer within the nation.
Whereas Ford’s retailer opened in 2004, the seeds had been planted years earlier. Ford hung out in New York as a purchaser for Lord & Taylor after graduating from Emory College in Atlanta. Her love of sneakers had deepened throughout school, the place fashion-forward campus life within the mid-90s meant footwear was a defining assertion. And he or she positive had hers.
“Strolling throughout campus, your important technique of trying cool was your footwear,” Ford recollects, including that Air Max 95s had been her go-to again then.
In New York, she honed her retail expertise, studying the ins and outs of shopping for and product growth. Then she met Clarence Nathan, the founding father of the Brooklyn-based Premium Items. His retailer opened Ford’s eyes to the risk of enterprise possession.
“I sat with him and noticed what it seemed wish to be an entrepreneur,” Ford says. “Understanding him, and realizing his story, it was like, ‘I can do that too.’”
Her expertise in New York uncovered her to the probabilities of sneaker tradition past what Houston supplied on the time. However the metropolis took its toll on her. Between the pressures of her job, the aftermath of 9/11, and the notorious blackout of 2003, she discovered herself craving for one thing totally different. Her hometown referred to as her again.
Returning to Houston, Ford introduced her imaginative and prescient for a sneaker boutique together with her. On the time, the town lacked the sort of curated, culture-forward sneaker retailer providing the unique, hard-to-find types she had fallen in love with and seen thrive in New York. “There was nothing like this in my metropolis,” she says. “Nobody was considering outdoors the field.”
Premium Items is a trailblazing Black girl–owned sneaker retailer, proper right here in Houston.
Ford took that imaginative and prescient and ran with it, opening her personal retail service in Rice Village in 2004 and naming the shop after the Brooklyn unique. Within the early days, clients didn’t absolutely grasp the idea of a boutique sneaker retailer. The shop’s proximity to different big-name, large-scale shoe suppliers like Footlocker created an added impediment. However that didn’t deter Ford. She began by reselling unique releases she had personally sourced from Japan and the UK realizing she needed to show her idea to sneaker manufacturers. By getting hard-to-find worldwide types and constructing a loyal buyer base, Ford slowly acquired the eye of main gamers like Nike and Adidas. Inside six months of opening, she landed her first main accounts, transitioning Premium Items from a resell operation to an official retailer.
As Premium Items transitioned, Ford additionally began planting deep roots in the neighborhood. From day one, her retailer grew to become a household effort, with siblings, cousins, and even her mother pitching in to assist run the store. Over time, it grew into one thing bigger—a spot the place clients felt linked, staff discovered objective, and a neighborhood of sneaker lovers took form.
In the future, a buyer walked into the shop and made an impression Ford couldn’t neglect. “He was the worst,” she laughs, referring to Joe Kare, now Premium Items’ artistic director. “He would are available and simply ask ‘Ugh, why is that within the case’ and ‘Why are you doing this.’ I referred to as him Hater Joe.” However Kare didn’t simply critique; he cared. He joined the workforce and labored his approach up from stock and gross sales to ultimately managing, shopping for, and now main artistic initiatives.
Premium Items carries the main gamers, like Nike and Adidas.
Kare’s affect has been pivotal, notably in shaping Premium Items’ personal label and collaborations just like the latest PG x Adidas Campus 00’ sneaker. Designed as a love letter to Houston’s automobile tradition, the shoe displays the town’s distinctive spirit. Options like cracked leather-based, bushy suede, and a detachable patch on the tongue draw inspiration from mission vehicles, worn-in aesthetics, and the personalization Houstonians carry to their rides.
“Everyone has some sort of reminiscence associated to vehicles,” Kare says in regards to the model’s newest creation “Possibly it’s engaged on a automobile with their dad, or they keep in mind their first car. We actually needed to faucet into these reminiscences and likewise remind folks in regards to the onerous work and the labor of affection that sort of goes into autos.”
The sneaker isn’t nearly fashion; it’s about giving again. A portion of the proceeds helps Dekaney Excessive Faculty’s auto tech program, serving to to fund workshops, clinics, and driver education schemes. And this isn’t the primary time Premium Items has tied a product to a objective. From an NAACP collab to youth basketball workforce sponsorships, Ford has made neighborhood funding a central mission.
“I’ve been requested quite a few occasions to open different shops in different cities however I can’t see that,” she says. “I like this metropolis a lot. Town has given a lot to us that it’s our mission now to offer again.”
Celebrating its twentieth anniversary, Premium Items has come a great distance from its early days in Rice Village. The shop has grow to be a cultural hub with a attain extending past Houston via collaborations, occasions, and even its clients, a lot of whom have grown up with the model.
As Premium Items steps into a brand new decade, Ford is worked up in regards to the prospects forward. Plans are within the works to develop to a brand new location within the metropolis, presumably the Heights, and to develop extra private-label merchandise that inform genuine Houston tales. “We’ve a variety of tales to inform and we will inform [them] via attire,” she says.
