Jessica Washick of Nike

Business of HYPE

HYPEBEAST

Society & Culture

4.8 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2020

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jessica Washick is a Senior Color Designer at Nike focusing on primarily on Air Force 1's for Men's Footwear. When she's not creating your favorite Nike AF1's (think interchangeable swooshes or double stacked eyestays) by day, she's a professional nail artist by night. Her instagram page gives us a glimpse into her thought process where jelly nails coincide with the AF1's jelly swoosh or her iridescent manicure cross over with the iridescent details on a sneaker. Both careers require meticulous attention to detail, and for Jessica, they draw inspiration from each other.

The Parsons graduate boasts of an impressive resume where she's utilized her fashion design degree at Fossil, Rocawear, Marc Jacobs, Coach and more. During her seven year career at Coach, she began using nail art as a form of therapy from a bad break up and thus began her successful side hustle. Her website, U Don't Need a Man, U Need a Manicure was a hit success and she began taking freelance projects alongside her day job. Through a number of trial and error in her career, she breaks down how she landed her coveted role at Nike and balances her two careers today.

Beyond her work, she stresses the importance of self-reflection and being able to "ask ourselves the hard questions", the value of finding a job that nourishes creativity and the often necessity to start over and take risks.

As always, thank you for tuning into HYPEBEAST Radio and Business of HYPE. Please don't forget to rate, comment and subscribe to our other shows MIC/LINE, The Anthropology, The HYPE Report and HYPETALKS.

For more info: https://hypebeast.com/2020/2/jessica-washick-interview-business-of-hype-episode-66

Jessica Washick's Website: https://uneedamanicure.tumblr.com/

Jessica Washick's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicawashick/?hl=en

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From Hype Beast Radio, I'm Jeff Staples, and this is the business of hype, a show about creative entrepreneurs, brand builders, innovators, and the realities behind the dreams
0:21.7	they've built.
0:22.3	If someone told you that you can go from painting nails to designing sneakers, would you believe
0:40.4	them? Would you believe that they're much more related than you might actually think?
0:45.2	It takes a creative and determined mind to make that transition, and today's business of
0:50.6	hype guest is here to break down just how she was able to do it.
1:00.4	She is the senior color designer at Nike working on Air Force Ones, and not only did she make the jump from nails to kicks, but she's been able to marry both passions into one very
1:05.7	amazing career arc. Her true hustle spirit and design talents took her from the Poconos to Parsons
1:13.1	with incredible opportunities at different brands like coach, Mark Jacobs, and a few surprising
1:19.1	ones in between. Her story speaks volumes about really looking into yourself to find out what
1:25.6	you love and then going after it.
1:28.7	Please welcome to this week's business of hype, Jessica Washick.
1:37.8	Thanks a lot for coming all the way to New York City from Portland, Oregon.
1:42.8	Thanks for having me.
1:43.5	Yeah, thanks for being in the studio, which today is the pre-development room for staple,
1:49.8	but offers good sound insulation.
1:52.4	Introduce yourself.
1:53.4	Tell us who we have in today.
1:55.1	I'm Jessica Washik.
1:56.2	I'm a nail artist, and I'm also a senior color designer in men's footwear at Nike.
2:02.8	Nice. You're our first Nike employee. Oh my gosh. Really? I think so. Wow. Yeah. It's so cool. Thank you so much for having me.
2:09.8	How long have you been at Nike? It's about four years now in total. Okay. Yeah.
	...

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