African American Detroit natives, Shawn & Shane Ward
They're the dynamic duo behind the red hot shoe companies Detny and Shane & Shawn. Leslie C. Alessandro, editor of Black Girls Rule! gives us the full story on these two young, talented entrepreneurs.
BGR: When did the two of you decide that you wanted to become shoe designers? 
Shane: The idea of becoming shoe designers actually crept up on us. I don’t think that either one of us thought about doing this as a profession. We both went to the University of Michigan and when I graduated out of the design and art school, I actually was going to take a job at General Motors.
Actually, a buddy of mine that graduated a year before me he actually took a job at Adidas and called me up to see if I wanted to interview. I went to interview with Adidas in Portland, Oregon and they offered me a job on the spot. So that’s how we got into shoes.
BGR: How did you go about the decision to design women’s shoes over men?
Shawn: It was more of a gradual process. Shane was designing shoes for Adidas and while he was there, I was studying mechanical engineering and was an engineer at Chrysler working on auto-motives. When we finally teamed up in 2001, we were still designing for other companies. We were designing athletic shoes for Reebok, Converse, Fubu and Fila We were designing men’s and women’s athletic shoes. When we decided to start Detny in 2003, we were thinking of doing all men's because...