EnricoMan, I started acting 10 years ago when I was 7 years old. My mother was a model when she was younger and she used to work with events, do photoshoots and advertising campaigns. When she had my brother, she would take him to child agencies. He modeled until he was about 13 years old, doing photos, catalog, advertising. I remember when I was 6 years old, looking at a Johnson’s Baby paper calendar with a picture of my brother, this fat little baby, in the calendar. And then I said: “Mom, I want to do that too. Take me. I want to be on TV, I want to make movies”.

EnricoI started studying cinema this year, I had a month of class, I fell deeply in love with it, I loved the teachers, the subject…and then suddenly came the pandemic. And then it was a complete disappointment because I hated distance learning, I was very frustrated. I dragged myself through the semester, and finished based on hatred for the whole thing, and then I decided to drop out. But I really liked the course, even though distance learning sucked, at least for me, and I intend to go back to studying cinema as soon as it’s possible to attend regular classroom sessions. And in fact, studying also made it possible for me, gave me the confidence and maybe even the necessary knowledge to do other things in this creative field and I started feeling what’s it like to be a director.

enricoI think it’s all about grabbing the opportunities that come around and saying: Bro, I’ll do it. Let’s do it. I’ll try, I’ll learn. I’ll learn by doing – all the great ones learn by doing.

And I think that in this moment that we are living, we have to face two things: the first, is the coronavirus pandemic; and the second, are the mental health-related problems. This is very real and has affected me a lot. During this quarantine period, I lost my grandmother and I was very close to her, she was like my 84-year-old best friend. And dealing with her loss, along with the quarantine, was very difficult. And for me, going back to what I started talking about, what gave me purpose, what made me get out of bed in the morning, was the possibility to create, to work producing these things that complete me, that make me have a purpose.

And I’m always reminding myself of the privilege that is to work with what you like, we tend to forget that in our daily lives. The great majority of people work to maintain themselves, to survive. So, bro, if you have a job that you like and can sustain yourself, it’s done! You know? You’re made for life.

enricoDude, I think I started being interested in sneakers when I was 12 years old. Whenever I traveled with my parents, I’d see different sneakers that we didn’t have in Brazil. This started to trigger my curiosity, so I started snooping on the internet and YouTube to understand more. I first found the sneaker blogs from abroad like Sneaker News and Nice Kicks – I remember I used to access them every day, and I loved watching the new collabs they were going to release. I was learning about the history of sneakers and how sporting performance ended up creating sneaker culture as we have today, how it came about 30 years ago, you know. I started to fall in love with all that, and at the same time, I started to fall in love with Rap and Hip-Hop – especially Kanye West, who I’m a big fan of, bro, until today.

And the sneaker that started my relationship with adidas was the Yeezy 350 – the second Yeezy that dropped here in Brazil. I was 12 years old and I went to wait in line with my father, I made him stay up all night with me, my father is awesome. I was the second person to get the sneakers, and then my father was also chosen, so I got two pairs! I was very, very happy, I still have the picture – me with the sneaker in my hand, incredulous, with a smile from ear to ear and crying, dude. I cried of happiness. Unfortunately today it no longer fits my feet, because it is a size 37. Do you know who wears it now? My mother. And the sneaker is very well built, she wears them until today and it’s all in one piece, man. For a 5-year-old sneaker?

And it was also there where my relationship with both adidas and SneakersBr began, that was the day I met Jaime. It was very crazy. I actually met a lot of people that, of course, nowadays not so much, time goes by and we end up distancing ourselves from people, but I met a lot of cool people that I still, in some ways, maintain in contact with until today. The people you meet in this environment, to have friends who like the same things as you, who you can talk to for hours, is very dope. And it was on that night that I definitely fell in love with the sneaker culture. I spent the whole night exchanging ideas with people 10, 15 years older than me, about sneakers and listening to music, and everyone exchanging ideas, talking, it was very cool.

And I think, not wanting to sound like an old 18-year-old, but at that time it was different, you know? there really was a much greater sense of community. I think people helped each other, it was less about the value of sneakers and more about the passion for it.

enricoIt’s also a double-edged sword, at the same time that it’s boring to have these people who are only interested in the money involved in the whole thing, there are so many people, that this has become a global market, like we see today in StockX. Unfortunately, or fortunately, if it wasn’t for these people, the culture wouldn’t be the size it’s today. And I think it’s still the same for those who really like sneakers – they just have to arrive a little earlier.

enricoThe ZX family has a huge historical importance. adidas was the performance brand, the sports brand, it had this very strong love for sports – and this is still the brand’s spirit. And in the ‘80s ZX was the ultimate culmination of that – it was the first sneaker line that offered several types of shoes for different types of runners. It was something unimaginable at the time, and that paved the way for what everyone does to this day, several different types of sneakers for several different types of runners. Sneakers for the person who needs support, or who needs more lightness, or the person who needs more cushioning. So it started like this, but like everything else, besides being extremely functional and very good at what they were designed for, they are also very beautiful sneakers.

To this day adidas produces ZX from the ‘80s because the sneaker’s design is way ahead of its time, even being a bit of a retrofuturist, in my opinion, they don’t seem to be from 40 years ago. Can you imagine what it was like back then, especially for the handful of people in here who were passionate about sneakers, imagine this: you’re in Brazil, accustomed to only seeing your everyday Kichutes and suddenly you see a ZX on a shelf?  It must have been a total shock. So I think that besides this milestone in performance, the ZX family also had and still has great importance in sneaker culture.

enricoIn 2008 and 2009, they launched the first A-ZX. And now they’re making a comeback with this series and it’s very cool – and even more so because this time almost all 26 pairs will come to Brazil. So we already had the Deadhype’s ZX 8000 which was sick, the ones from Concepts also beautiful, which by the way I was very sad that I couldn’t get. The Lego’s are also very sick, they’re on my wishlist.