Brooklyn teenager's sneakers to be made for 75 Oscar nominees
NEW YORK -- A teenager from Brooklyn is taking her sneakers straight to the Oscars after creating her own shoe line.
Amira-Dior Traynham-Artis is a budding entrepreneur and the brainchild behind Lane1.
Her sneaker company features super cool, made-to-order kicks which will soon be in a hotel gift suite in Hollywood the week of the Oscars.
When asked who she loves to see wearing her shoes, Traynham Artis said, "Zendaya."
Right now, 75 pairs are being made in Italy for nominees.
"Wow, I've come a very long way, I know if I was able to go back in the past and drag younger me right here, she would be so excited and so proud," Traynham-Artis said.
With her mom by her side, the seventh grader comes up with the looks at her home in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
"When she is really interested in what she wants and to make it happen she doesn't stop," Traynham-Artis' mother Kenesha Traynham-Cooper said.
Traynham-Artis may be new to this game, just launching her company online last year, but she's always had a keen business sense.
There was a time when she was just 3 years old, when her mom got a call from daycare.
"She was cutting up pieces of paper at the table and we asked her what she was doing," Traynham-Cooper said. "And she said 'I'm giving out business cards, just like that."
The color pallets are intentionally neutral to fit everyone's aesthetic, the 14-year-old told Eyewitness News reporter Kemberly Richardson.
She hopes to one day team up with Nike or Adidas, and offered some advice to others who may be reluctant to take the same leap she has.
"There's always going to be somebody who is going to try to tear you down, your job is to not allow them to do that," Traynham-Artis said.
You can check out the 14-year-old's sneakers on her website and her Instagram page @lane1nyc.
