Interview by Dominic Ciambrone
Photos by Bryan Villacres
Let’s start from the beginning. Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Jaysse Lopez and I’m from Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Puerto Rican descent. Section 8 boy. And I didn’t know we were poor. I had too much fun, you know what I mean? [Those weren’t] Things you focused on as a kid. I’m like the modern sneaker version of Al Bundy.
You said the modern day Al Bundy.
Well, I got my own peg, she’s hot. She cooks, unlike Peg. She reminds me I’m not [special] every day and always has something really funny and snappy to say to me. I go to work and try to sell shoes. I like selling shoes and I have a lot of sarcasm. And instead of going to Polk High and getting three touchdowns in a game, I started with one shoe and $40.
How did you start collecting?
My first pair of real sneakers, it was in 1990 when the Air Max 90s came out. The first sneaker I saw a friggin’ ad for that made me think, “Oh shit I need this, mom, I need this” was the Air Max 90 Infrared. It was $110 back then. My mother worked in a warehouse for $2.34 an hour. She put them on clipboard. When she pulled them out, they weren’t even my size anymore. I blurted out of them. I fucking wore them ’til the midsoles popped bro.
So you stuck your toes out?
Yes. I ripped them through. I sure ripped them through, but that’s all I had. Then in high school my mom remarried and I had a pretty cool stepdad. He always tried to motivate me. He knew I was a brand whore like most kids, especially when you don’t have shit. So he’d say, “Okay, if you get A’s, I’ll fucking buy you shoes.” He didn’t really buy me a lot of shoes since I never really had A’s, but when he did buy me shoes, I hated the fact that were all into the same shit, which is Jordans. So I missed Jordan Playoff 8s for Derrick Coleman British Knights, you know what I mean? I left out a few good ones. I missed a few that still make me think, “What the hell was I thinking?”
Well, that’s the thing. They just wanted to wear shoes and stand out.
Yes. It was never with the intention of saying, “Yo, these are going to be worth something.” When I finally got a job and bought sneakers but still lived at home, I remember saying to my mom, “Yo, I did Hunger.” She would say, “Oh, well, why don’t you eat those sneakers you just bought?”
When did you open the shop?
September 17, 2014.
It’s been eight years. So how did Urban Necessities come about?
Ten years ago I lost my job. i met a girl I told her I was into sneakers and I think I could sell shoes until I find another job. I wrote over a hundred applications. I was either overqualified or underqualified for the shit I applied for. I was evicted from my apartment because, like most people, I live beyond my means. Six months later I started selling shoes. The Area 72 Barkley Posites was the first shoe I sold with the intention of buying three so I could sell two and keep one.
Joanie gave me some money and we bought 18 and we flipped 17 for about $200 profit. And she says, “I think you’re up to something.” I’ve never really made a damn dollar, but I’ve built a brand. Inadvertently. I approached Boulevard Mall to do a fair and they said, ‘You should open a store.’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t even have a pot to piss in. I don’t think I could make enough money to open a store long term.” So they gave me a sweetheart deal.
I opened up in a hallway that had been closed for five years, in a store that had been closed for seven years. But it worked. Now it’s been a whopping eight years since something started with $40 and is now nearly $130 million in sales.
Photo by Bryan Villacres
I think what you made is a very unique model. You do not consider your business a resale business. It’s a brand – Urban Necessities is a brand. What made you decide to move to Vegas in the first place?
My daughter’s mom moved here and my mom said, ‘Yo, you need to be closer to your kid.’ So I tried to make it work. For the first six months I was homeless. I’ve slept in parks, eaten out of trash cans, browsed and sold bottled water. I showered in the fountains in front of Caesars, now I have a shop in Caesars.
That’s crazy. This story shows how you can transform your life. If you have a dream, you can pursue it.
Yes man. It took me a while to realize that I just had to be consistent. As long as I kept trying to do all the shit I didn’t want to do, sooner or later it would work itself out.
I think consistency is what drives true success. I had to wear the same shoe over and over again and I hated it but you know what? It created a name and a bracket, and sometimes you have to do that.
If we were to compare my life to the life of Forrest Gump, I’m standing there as he first starts walking despite wearing the braces.
This is Inked so let’s move on to talking tattoos. You have some of the craziest tattoos I’ve ever seen on anyone. What was your first tattoo?
I’ve gone down the stereotypical route of getting Asian lyrics, which probably don’t even say what I think they say.
That’s probably covered now.
Yes. I have a Cantonese script that says “excite the mind and never let it rest in one place,” but I’m pretty sure it’s more like “I love fucking double quarter pounders with McDonald’s cheese” or some shit.
How old were you?
Seventeen. My dad is super old school, isn’t he? And he’s always been a crazed anti-tattoos. So he said, “What the hell is that on your arm?” And I had to tell him my arm got caught on the bottom of a hot frying pan and that’s the name of the brand.
Are you serious?
I’m deadly serious. And then my second time was a grim reaper. I told him I went back and got a portrait of him and I showed him the grim reaper. He was angry. I had a unique relationship with my father as a kid, you know? My father is an adult Puerto Rican. He didn’t go to school, it was like a third grade; Probably the hardest working person I’ve ever seen, man.
Okay, we have to end with one last sneaker question – if you could make a sneaker, what would it be?
A Jordan 3 low.
We still have to do that.
I don’t know if the world will be ready for little fat dudes from Puerto Rico who design shoes.