CHARLOTTE, N.C. — What started as a dream in her dorm room during the start of the pandemic became reality for North Mecklenburg High School grad, Arial Robinson.
The North Carolina A&T senior was chosen to create a shoe for Nike's Yardrunners campaign.
The campaign started in 2020 as a way to celebrate the history, heritage, and legacy of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
"It started with me in my room during the pandemic at the top of March, just creating content for Instagram, inspired by Nike," said Robinson.
Through her content, she was able to create a connection with someone who worked at Nike and harvested a friendship. Nike then sent her a pair of blazers.
"I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe Nike knows who I am.' And so I went outside and I took pictures as if I was on my own photo shoot by myself with the shoes as if I was the one selling them. And they loved that campaign. So they brought me onto the team last year, 2021 for Yardrunners 2.0 to creative direct. I was assistant creative director, and then I came back for year three as a designer of a Nike Dunk.”
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The shoe she created is called the “Ayantee”, designed after North Carolina A&T’s Student Center.
“So it's quite literally the building turned into the shoe," said Robinson, adding "the yellow laces are inspired by the infamous yellow staircase. If anybody ever comes to Greensboro and has the opportunity to come on our campus, you got to get a picture on the yellow stairs. And then the bottom of the shoe has grass on it, which is inspired by the joke on our campus that they always keep the grass cut low. Which is true. If you come on our campus, the grass is cut low, or you're gonna see somebody cutting it.”
Robinson says the building has a special place in her heart.
“So HBCUs were created to provide Black students with a physical space to learn, to grow, to succeed, and fail. And so the student center has been that place for me. And since 1967, when the first Memorial Student Union opened, that's been the purpose. It was created to be the heart and soul of the campus to provide students with meeting grounds to study, to play, to interact with each other, to grow. And so I have been nurtured by this place. And I wanted to commemorate it. It's also an award-winning building. And so the architects, they did an amazing job with creating a place where people can really live and then take those memories with them. I've done a lot of things in this student center from, you know, studying, to meeting new people, to having photoshoots, to going to different events, to meeting celebrities that will come on our campus and like speak to us. So I have a lot of memories engrained within it.”
The shoes will be available on the Nike SNKRS App starting October 25.
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