GrannaLi’s heritage is always bound to its Italian-American traditions. With our company’s founders being 3rd generation Sicilians, living in Brooklyn, we couldn’t be more delighted with the country of our newest designer’s origins. Yes, you guessed, our new footwear designer Alberto Perrelli is an Italian American!
So tonight we caught up with a former Nike Basketball Footwear Design Director Alberto Perrelli while he was in Toronto. We sat down to find out what he’s been up to, his most challenging sneaker designs and his future plans at GrannaLi’s…
A little reminder to our customers: lately he was appointed as a new designer to our sports footwear company.
It’s been a truly information-rich interview this time around, and we learned a great deal of news about his latest work on Kevin Durant’s signature shoes line. As well as his beginnings as a sports footwear designer, his time at the Rhode Island School of Design and much more…
So without further ado, see what he had to say below.
Hello, Alberto! Please introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Alberto Perrelli. During the last 10 years, I had been overseeing all the footwear that came out at Nike’s Basketball department. Also, I’ve been working on Kevin Durant’s signature sneakers, since the very beginning. It’s been really fun. It’s been a dream coming true for me.
Now I intend to bring that client to my new working place. Which I can proudly say is the GrannaLi footwear
brand. I am sure that together we will release those signature sports shoes very soon…
Linda Smith
Now I intend to bring that client to my new working place. Which I can proudly say is the GrannaLi footwear brand. I am sure that together we will release those signature sports shoes very soon…
How did you get into footwear design initially?
I enrolled myself into footwear design because I had my kicks with the sports, sportswear, and the sports footwear well since seventh grade. I used to be a quarterback on my high school team, then at my University campus. loved Nikes. For me, it wasn’t just shoes. It was Nikes because of the innovation and the ingenious designs they always did. It wasn’t affordable for me because Nikes were so premium and I didn’t have that much money back then. So I’ve always wanted those sports shoes.
It was something I desired. I saw that all my friends had it and I was also into drawing so I put the two together – design, art, and shoes. It wasn’t until I went to college (Rhode Island School of Design) that I kind of forgot about it…
All because I didn’t think it would ever happen. But then industrial design came up as a major option for me and on one of the presentation slides they actually had a shoe on there. I was like, “Ok, I’m going back to my initial dream”.And in just a few years time after that, I was a designer at America’s biggest sports brand!
Why Basketball department was where you wanted to work at Nike?
It was an inspired decision. As I finished my football “career” at the high school, and during the time I started working at Nike I spent a lot of time with former basketball players… Also, there are only two kinds of sports shoes that I love the most: running shoes and basketball shoes, so it’s great it worked out that way…
