Rashid Thobega Stewart’s iconic mustard sneaker has taken the sneaker industry by storm Photo Supplied
Johannesburg – Landlords Footwear’s classic mustard retro sneakers sealed the company’s footprint in the sneaker industry. The company was founded in 2019, but it wasn’t until the following year these steps were produced and sold. Since then, its journey of dominating the sneaker industry began.
The homegrown company started when Rashid Thobega Stewart, Founder and CEO of Landlords Footwear, was “forced to jump ship” and start something new.
“When you’re desperate to make something happen and suddenly with all the events like Covid and all of the stuff that happened you are disturbed from that specific journey that you are travelling, and you are now forced to jump ship and start something brand new.”
The obvious choice for Stewart was something in the fashion industry as he always had a passion for fashion. Landlords Footwear started out as a formal wear shoe, but it wasn’t long before they realised formal shoes were not everybody’s cup of tea.
“I just love fashion. Initially it was not even supposed to be a sneaker, it was a formal shoe brand because I had made formal shoes for myself and my partner but those were samples. But then along the way we realised that let us change that idea to making something that can accommodate the broader mass because not everybody really loves formal shoes and from there it just blossomed.”
Stewart describes himself as a young man with “an old soul.” His sneakers have a retro vibe with simple and elegant lines. One could say it isn’t like the designs of today.
“The way I view and analyse things, there’s a little bit of some old school vibe to it. This is how I live my life. I just wanted something that can reflect classic circles from back in the eighties when the likes of Nike started out. The sneakers were more of an athletic [type]. They were good for athletics, for runners. That’s how it started, and we avoided doing too much clinical dilemma on the sneakers. We just kept it simple for everybody, especially the mature crowd.”
There were many colours to drip the shoe in, but Stewart wanted to catch the public’s eye thus, the mustard sneaker made its mark. Not only is it eye-catching but it also makes the sneakers “stand out in a social media space.”
“We made them available to the general public on 9 November 2019 and we were just heading towards December. I guess to stand out and be loud and sensible it would be better to give the people the mustard colour and that’s what we did. It was more for visibility, being reasonable, being seen, being loud, being heard and it had so many effects.”
In any business, the first sale is the one remembered the most, along with the first person to take a chance on your product. For Landlords Footwear, that first person was found in Krugersdorp. Stewart’s initial sales gave him the mindset to continue what he was doing and spurred him on.
“The first pair I sold was in Krugersdorp and I sold it to a gentleman from Mozambique. The second guy was from Ethiopia. Just by doing that I realised that these things actually can move because the pricing was very reasonable, and it overwhelmed me at the same time. When you give back to something, as much as you want it to be a success, when you exceed your expectations and you are very conscious of everything, this life that we’re living, you are supposed to feel overwhelmed but not out of fear but out of excitement and then believing that it seems as if we were doing something right.”
The name of any brand can make it or break it. Oftentimes we find local brands have a unique story as to how they got their names. The name behind the story sometimes carries weight that can alone propel the brand into superstardom.
“I’m a very conscious person. I read a lot of books. My father was an activist. Very informed and street educated, he educated himself. Automatically for me I was always attracted to knowledge…. With Landlords, it just boils back to Rashid feeling that I’m born and bred in Africa, and I am supposed to portray those qualities that can resemble a great man who begins to own, his life first and foremost, who begins to own his space, my environment. I need to be in control of it and I need to establish businesses and just own whatever space that I’m in…. add value to your space and be a landlord and that’s how it came to be really.”
Stewart’s vision for the next five years is to open “a few retail stores and employ a couple of our brothers and sisters”, especially the youth, “Giving young people opportunities to tap into the retail space and learn as much as they can from us.”
For now, his main goal is to focus on growing and strengthening his online business before attempting to open any shops.
“We would like to make use of the digital space that has been granted to us because it made things quite easy for us…. I’m not in a hurry to open thousands of stores. I would just like the business to organically grow and open a few stores specifically in major cities like Johannesburg and Pretoria and allow the business to grow organically without any marketing theatrics that I usually see when I’m out there.”
Oftentimes the youth have brilliant ideas but may not know how to execute them. For Stewart, the one piece of advice he can give is to go ahead with it and learn from your failures.
“It’s okay to fail, life is a marathon, it’s not a sprint…. Believe in yourself… it all boils back to an individual but the main thing is keep starting. Just do it and fail though it doesn’t matter. Eventually you will realise where you’ve been going wrong and what needs to be changed.”
Maryam Mkwanda spoke with Rashid Thobega Stewart, listen here:
