ART & ENTERTAINMENT Ivan Jaddou: The shoemaker BY CAL ABBO Ivan Jaddou has taken anything but a traditional Chaldean path. He forged his own way, forcing himself into one of the world’s toughest industries, mainly through sheer hard work and inspired drive. At every turn, Jaddou proved that he can compete with and should be ranked among the world’s top shoe designers. Jaddou grew up in Dearborn, right next to the Ford Motor Company World Headquarters. His childhood was classic Detroit with Chaldean garnish. “I did elementary, middle, and high school in Dearborn,” Jaddou said. He also was selected for and attended the Dearborn Center for Math, Science and Technology (DCMST), an exclusive, part-time high school with an advanced curriculum. Many of the courses offered at DCMST adhere to the Advanced Placement program or have a dual enrollment agreement with a local college. “I started by trying out a more traditional route,” said Jaddou. “I thought I wanted to do medicine and be a doctor because I wanted to help people. I shadowed my uncle, who has his own practice, doing basic things like taking blood pressure and vitals and watching him work.” While Jaddou acquired experience in the medical field, he attended Wayne State University and enrolled in some basic, pre-requisite courses like biology and chemistry. “I was so bored that I spent all my time drawing in my notebook instead of balancing equations,” he said. “I started to get good at sketching again, and it just so happened to be sneakers.” While this wasn’t Jaddou’s first experience as an artist, it represented a return to an older craft that he cultivated in his childhood. “As a kid, I loved to draw cartoons like Dragon Ball Z, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, and anything else on Cartoon Network,” he recalled. “But I stopped drawing for a while once I got into high school.” Jaddou remembers a specific defining moment in his late teenage years. “It was a pair of Y-3 shoes,” he said. The Y-3 series, made by the famed Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, is renowned for its combination of elegance, versatility, and extreme quality at a reasonable price. “These shoes lasted me longer than any shoe I’ve ever worn,” Jaddou said. “There’s something really special about this product. At the end of its use, even when it was worn down, I actually ended up loving them more. They charmed me and I wanted to keep them. Even though they’re beat up, I didn’t want to throw them away because we’d been through so much together.” Little did he know, Jaddou would work directly on the Y-3 brand years later. Once Jaddou realized that medicine wasn’t for him, the transition was fast. He wasted no time telling his parents he wanted to do design. “My mother was so happy for me that I found something I really love to do. I’m lucky to have my parents the way that they are, supporting me with everything that I want to do and trusting that it will work out,” he said. But Jaddou had no professional or academic art background and no real portfolio to showcase his work. So, he enrolled in art classes at Henry Ford Community College, hoping to gain enough experience to build a portfolio. “I struggled a lot. I wasn’t one of the art kids,” he said. “I had to find my artistic side once again.” In that moment, he went all in. “I told myself that if I was going to do this, I would do it 110%,” Jaddou said. “I thought of my dad going to work every day. Spending 14 hours on his feet at the grocery store on a Sunday. I’d like to think I inherited some of that work ethic from him.” Jaddou’s entire family except his father spent that summer in San Diego. “I spent the summer alone with my father, working on my portfolio to enter art school,” he said. Finally, Jaddou was accepted to the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit. “In the 2010s, there were all these designer sneakers coming out. Lanvin, Common Projects, Trussardi – there was a new market of luxury sneakers that hadn’t really happened before,” he said. “I wanted to own these, but they were too expensive. Some of them were priced near $1,000.” Jaddou took inspiration from these new luxury brands and began designing his own. “As a Chaldean, with the entrepreneurial background of my parents, I tried to start my own brand,” he said. “I tried to enter the luxury shoe market but wanted a target price around $200. I partnered with a friend studying business. We both put our money in.” Not long after, Jaddou and his partner shopped their designs and scouted potential manufacturers. “We traveled to Brazil to try and develop everything, but we lost our funds,” he said. “We got to second prototypes and we were looking at packaging.” They soon realized that building a shoe brand required more capital and time than they could afford, so they abandoned the project, but Jaddou added his painstaking designs to his professional portfolio. Art school changed how Jaddou saw the world. “It opened my mind to a whole other world of design,” he said. “Everything around us in the man-made world is designed somehow. Even if it’s not made by humans, even if it comes from nature. It opened my mind to take everything from a design perspective.” Jaddou reports that, at CCS, “you’re acting on your creativity.” There are fewer tests, but you still have to solve problems and think strategically. Business and design, for example, are inextricably linked. “In every business, if there’s a product you’re selling, it needs to be designed somehow, and there’s a designer behind it,” according to Jaddou. “Even if it’s a grocery store. Even a mom-and-pop shop needs branding. You need architecture, a façade, interior, signage, branding, food products, refrigeration. Everything is designed somehow. Many businesses are successful because of excellent design.” Jaddou’s sparkling international career really began on Career Day at CCS. “The whole day, nobody came to my work,” he said. “At the very last minute, the Adidas recruiter comes up to me and says, ‘I wanted to save you for last.’ He told me about their internship program in Portland, and I got it that summer. I always had this dream that my work would be so good that people will invite me to other countries and my work will take me around the world.” Portland, it turns out, was relatively close to home. “I looked at this internship as a golden ticket,” Jaddou said. “I was obsessed with my work there. I never really did anything else. I had to give it everything and maybe it would lead to something else. I stayed up late, thinking of new concepts and sketches, and really impressed some of my superiors.” One day, one of the design directors SHOES continued on page 36 34 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>FEBRUARY</strong> <strong>2023</strong>
CHALDEAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION CAREER SERVICES WALK-IN DAYS: MONDAY, TUESDAY, THURSDAY 8:30AM - 4:00PM WHAT WE DO The Career Services Department at the Chaldean Community Foundation offers one-on-one assistance to help clients identify goals and develop careers. • CAREER FAIRS • COVER LETTER WRITING • EMPLOYER REFERRALS • FAFSA COMPLETION • JOB APPLICATION COMPLETION • MOCK INTERVIEWS • RESUME BUILDING • TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES CHALDEAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION 3601 15 MILE RD STERLING HEIGHTS, MI 48310 <strong>FEBRUARY</strong> <strong>2023</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 35