How One Perfect Design Turned Common Projects Into The Apple Of Sneakers

When it comes to iconic product design, there’s Dieter Rams’s appliances. Eero Saarinen’s seating. Steve Jobs’s hardware. So…are you ready for the Girolami-Poopat sneaker? Because, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it’s beginning to look like the Common Projects Achilles will stand the test of time. In some ways, it already has. Flavio Girolami and Peter Poopat’s silhouettes are now as recognizable as the biggest styles from Nike or Adidas. And the duo’s cult following has grown into a full-blown religion thanks to high-wattage boosts from Kanye West, Drake, Alexander Skarsgård, and Aziz Ansari, among many others. “We’re always on the hunt for the perfect thing,” Poopat says. For the designers, that hunt has turned into a way of life that goes far beyond peerless sneaker-stitching. Girolami recently completed a search for a vintage watch—and humbly submits the 1950s Longines he just acquired. Both men also buy and work on motorcycles and are simultaneously renovating homes in New York—Poopat, a town house in Fort Greene, Brooklyn; Girolami, a loft in the West Village. “Most people would consider the work done,” Poopat says, “but we’re constantly tinkering.” Read more at GQ.