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ART & ENTERTAINMENT SHOES continued from page 34 from Germany came to visit the facility in Portland. “One of my directors set up a meeting between me and him. He said, ‘Show him your stuff; I just want you guys to talk.’ After the meeting, he told me about the Adidas Design Academy and invited me to apply.” Adidas Design Academy is a twoyear rotational program where a young designer gets exposed to many different departments and parts of the brand. The Design Academy requires a special project as a part of its application, so Jaddou spent six months putting together various ideas from his previous work. “There was something like 270 applicants from all around the world,” Jaddou said, “and they pick six of them in the end. They filtered the applicants through various rounds. Eventually, I made it to the round of 75, and they conducted an online interview. After the interview, they eliminated all but 18 people, and everyone was invited to Germany for three days.” Jaddou described the long weekend as a “Project Runway showdown.” “They made us take the project we had done for the last several months and expand on it,” he said. “We had four hours to change it in some way. My project was an origami shoe that folded up, and the laces went through every pleat. When you tighten it, the sole folded up and it changed the shape of the shoe.” During those four hours, Jaddou remembered the enchantment of his old Y-3s. “I added a mileage tracker to the shoe and a screen on the inside of the tongue displaying it,” he said. “Not only did it create emotional attachment, but from a technical side, you could see how long the shoe lasts before the tread starts to fall off.” Jaddou also created a fake app where you could see a leaderboard with your friends’ shoe mileage. Jaddou described the inside of the Adidas headquarters as a “spaceship.” During that short trip, he met people from countries all over the world - Philippines, Thailand, Sweden, France, Barbados, and many more. After the four hours passed and the assignments were turned in, the judges issued a group challenge. “They told us to sit there and think of a concept based on three words. After 30 minutes, we shared our ideas with the group. Based on those ideas, we had to create something together as a team,” he said. “We created a prototype of our idea. I presented the idea to the judges, and they loved my leadership,” Jaddou explained. “I was the person there that brought all of the individual ideas into one concept. Finally, after the competition, they invited me to the Academy for two years.” At the start of his Academy experience, Jaddou lived in a smaller German town and knew barely any of the local language. Adidas didn’t provide him with language courses, but his workplace was so international that he found it easy to communicate with everyone in English. By the program’s design, Jaddou worked on many projects and in many different areas of the operation. He worked closely with the Adidas customization tool - a web app that allows a customer to design their own shoe. He also contributed to high-end collaborations with Raf Simons, Rick Owens, and the legendary Y-3 line that inspired his love for shoes years ago. “I lived in Vietnam for three months,” Jaddou said. “I worked inside of a shoe factory as a technical designer. That’s where I got a more precise eye for design. Every millimeter counts when you design a shoe, a mold, or a sole. My job there was to interpret a designer’s sketch from the German office and make it feasible for manufacturing; working with engineers and bolt makers and everything in between. After the Design Academy, Jaddou had spent one year as an intern and two years as an apprentice working with Adidas before being offered a position. It was directing the MyAdidas customization application which he had worked on previously in the apprenticeship, building colors and palettes and deciding which materials and shapes to offer. “It was cool, but I really wanted to design a product,” Jaddou said. “I really wanted to design shoes from scratch, from zero. A different offer came my way from Reebok in Barcelona.” After learning more about the company and position, Jaddou took the job with Reebok and moved to Barcelona. His role was designing hi-tech, sport, and lifestyle, which was right up his alley. This new office was far from a headquarters; it was a satellite office, and he had to learn Spanish quickly. “Three years of Spanish in high school doesn’t do much,” he commented wryly. Jaddou worked at Reebok for about a year. “It didn’t work out in the end. The projects we were doing ended up getting dropped. We were working at a satellite office, working on projects outside of what the global team does. And that relationship just ended up disintegrating.” After he left, Jaddou did some freelance work to keep busy while looking for a new full-time position. At this point in his career, Jaddou was a young, inspired, committed, and proven design talent who had held roles with and worked for the highest-end design teams. Even then, it was more than difficult to find another position. “I always say that the hardest part about a job is getting it,” Jaddou reflected. “I counted 25 total interviews between leaving Reebok and getting my 36 CHALDEAN NEWS FEBRUARY 2023
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Broker Email: brianyaldoo@remax.com Associated Websites: Broker www.brianyaldoo.com Office (248) www.BuyingOrSellingRealEstate.com 737-6800 • Mobile (248) 752-4010 Office (248)737-6800 • Mobile (248)752-4010 Email: Toll brianyaldoo@remax.net Free (866) 762-3960 Email: brianyaldoo@remax.com www.BuyingOrSellingRealEstate.com Websites: www.brianyaldoo.com www.BuyingOrSellingRealEstate.com ELIAS KATTOULA CAREER SERVICES MANAGER Jaguar Land Rover Troy Sammi A. Naoum 1815 Maplelawn Drive Troy, MI 48084 TEL 248-537-7467 MOBILE 248-219-5525 snaoum@suburbancollection.com Advertise for As little As $ 85 in our business directory section! to place your ad, contact us today! phone: 248-851-8600 fax: 248-851-1348 30095 Northwestern Highway, Suite 101 Farmington Hills, MI 48334 CHALDEAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CHALDEAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION CHALDEAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CHALDEAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SANA NAVARRETTE DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT 30095 Northwestern Highway, Suite 101 Farmington Hills, MI 48334 CELL (248) 925-7773 TEL (248) 851-1200 FAX (248) 851-1348 snavarrette@chaldeanchamber.com www.chaldeanchamber.com www.chaldeanfoundation.org TT3E IIIIMMMMMMIIIIGGRRRAAATTIIIIOONNLAAAWW FIIIIRRRMMM OOF AAANNTTOONNE, CAAASAAAGGRRRAAANNDE & AAADWWERRRS, P.C. FOOORRR AALLLL YOOOURRR IIIMMMMIIIGRRRAATIIIOOONNNNEEEEDS STACY BAHRI STRATEGIC INITIATIVES MANAGER Diane E. Hunt Immigration Attorney 3601 15 Mile Road Sterling Heights, MI 48310 TEL: (586) 722-7253 FAX: (586) 722-7257 elias.kattoula@chaldeanfoundation.org www.chaldeanfoundation.org 3601 15 Mile Road Sterling Heights, MI 48310 TEL: (586) 722-7253 Eleanor J. Sintjago FAX: (586) 722-7257 Immigration Attorney stacy.bahri@chaldeanfoundation.org (2448) 4406-4400 | laaw@aanntoonne.coom | www. aanntoonne.coom www.chaldeanfoundation.org 33311555555555W. 11444 Miiiilllee Rooaad | Suiiiitee 11 | Faarmiiiinngtoonn Hiiiilllllls, Miiii§Íiiiigaann4448333333444 SANA NAVARRETTE MEMBERSHIP MANAGER next job. Often, I would get to the final stage of an application and not receive an offer. It was very disappointing.” Each job had Jaddou submit a tensof-pages long project proposal. He submitted a 40-page project to a company called Bershka that, a week after he submitted, they told him they “really liked.” Bershka, however, took issue with one part of Jaddou’s proposal. He offered to change it and send it back, and they obliged. “I made a different variation and sent it back,” Jaddou said. “That’s how I got the job. In a real-life situation, if someone comes to you and says, ‘I don’t know about this part,’ you have 30850 TELEGRAPH ROAD, SUITE 200 BINGHAM FARMS, MI 48025 TEL: (248) 996-8340 CELL: (248) 925-7773 FAX: (248) 996-8342 snavarrette@chaldeanchamber.com www.chaldeanchamber.com to adapt. As a professional, www.chaldeanfoundation.org you should Twitter: @ChaldeanChamber be open to suggestions and making Instagram: @ChaldeanAmericanChamber changes. Perhaps it was some kind of test for them.” For the last four years, Jaddou has designed shoe after shoe for Bershka. “I like it because we get to see the things we design pretty quickly,” he said. “With other brands it takes a while for you to see your work come to life; there’s a lot of bureaucracy in other companies and products have to go through rigorous testing in sports-oriented brands. At Bershka, we make fashion products.” Jaddou will travel with his team to larger European cities like London and Paris and Berlin to “see what’s going on in the streets and see how people are dressed, what’s happening in our stores in those cities, and get a sense of what the current market is like and what we should offer for next season.” While Jaddou loves his job at Bershka, there is a niche he thinks he can cover better. “Our price point at Bershka is very low, so you don’t have much room to play with premium materials or products that are designed to last a long time,” he said. “This is fast fashion. Every season it changes and there’s a new theme. It’s very difficult to create something iconic within this business model.” At some point in his career, Jaddou wants to release something iconic, what he calls a “franchise product. There are businesses that base their entire company around one product. Unfortunately, that’s not really what we do here,” he said. According to Jaddou, he wants to take the opportunity to thank the community that raised him and to provide inspiration for others that might follow in his well-styled footsteps. His budding career as a world-class shoe designer is just starting to gain ground, and we await his next leap forward. You can see Ivan’s work at ivanjaddou. myportfolio.com. FEBRUARY 2023 CHALDEAN NEWS 37
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