Meet the Halifax entrepreneur whose sole focus is giving shoes swag

The roots of Kemmy Smith's business come from a source of somewhat unusual inspiration — a casual Friday at his high school in the Bahamas.

The students at Smith's school wore uniforms, but casual Fridays were the exception. On one Friday, he was wearing his red, white and black Scarface T-shirt and decided to pair it with a white pair of Converse shoes, but he thought the shoes needed more swag.

He decided to paint his shoes using the T-shirt colours and change the laces from white to red.

"When you dress down, the shoes have to match the shirt, the shirt has to match the hate," said Smith, the brains behind Kreations by Kemmy, a Halifax company that does custom designs on people's sneakers and turns them into colourful works of art.

Other students loved the shoes and asked where he got them. What soon turned into a hobby has become a thriving business about a decade later.

Smith, 25, came to Nova Scotia in 2012 to attend Dalhousie University.

After 1½ years at the university, he switched to NSCAD University to get a bachelor of fine arts in interdisciplinary arts where his focus was on design and painting. This change was more in line with his creative interests.

Smith has always been enterprising.

When he was 15, after having an unpleasant experience while getting a haircut, he started to cut his own hair and watched YouTube videos to learn more. He soon began cutting his friends' hair and apprenticed with some barbers to learn the trade.

As a university student, he cut hair to make money and, despite the 60-plus hours he works each week today on his shoe business, he spends at least 10 hours each week cutting hair.

How barbering helped Smith's business

Cutting hair actually played a pivotal role in Smith's shoe business.

"If you sit in a barbershop all day, you'll get pretty much everything you'll need," he said. "You'll meet your doctor, your lawyer, your accountant ... your politicians, your sheriffs. You meet so many different people that give you all different advice."

One of his clients was Ta'Quan Zimmerman, a former Halifax Hurricanes basketball player who now plays for the Cape Breton Highlanders. When Zimmerman saw Smith's shoe work, he asked for a pair.

"Because he's a businessman himself, he's like, 'Why don't you turn this into a business?' I'm like, 'Oh, I guess,'" said Smith, who then wrote up a business plan with the help of a lawyer and accountant.

When customizing shoes, Smith collaborates with the client on ideas and comes up with a final design before carrying out the work.

How the shoes are customized

The process of painting the shoes includes sanding them to get rid of the factory paint job and getting the shoe back to its raw material form, then applying a base so the eventual paint job stays in place.

To date, Smith has customized shoes for NBA star Buddy Hield (a fellow Bahamian and Smith's former high school basketball opponent), rappers Robin Banks and Twy, and hockey player Jill Saulnier.

Saulnier's kicks show her laced up for Team Canada. The shoes are displayed at her home alongside memorabilia that includes her 2018 Olympic silver medal.

"They're awesome," she said. "I love seeing them every day."

Saulnier loved working with Smith.

"I love his imagination and the ideas he put forth," said Saulnier. "I could tell he was a master in his field and his art just proves that."

Smith has grown the business without borrowing any money.

"Every day, something new comes up for me and I'm just grateful for the opportunities, grateful to [collaborate] with people," he said.

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