Myles O’Meally takes the next big step with Areté

Footwear veteran Myles O’Meally engineered shoes for Nike in Vietnam and the Netherlands for five years. In 2019, he pivoted. From Amsterdam, O’Meally started his own all-in-one design studio: Areté. Contracts and collaborations soon followed, brands like Marc Jacobs, Raf Simons, and A Cold Wall. Now an asset to the fashion world, O’Meally explains his intersectional approach to Areté’s unique design language in an interview with Dazed MENA:

How does Areté create innovation in such a saturated market?

For us, this comes in different ways. It’s about being aware of different cultures, trends, and the movements within the industry, and always keeping your finger on the pulse. Ultimately, for us, though, I think it’s about always working out of a core, which is where design, engineering, community, and culture intersect. This naturally leads us to innovate within ourselves as we approach design from a hybrid position. Of course, we also at times approach innovation in the more traditional form, where we do use our knowledge and network to explore what the future may look like, but this is currently something we do more within in-house projects or special external projects.

What has been your favorite project to work on?

Marc Jacobs has been great. They’re a super nice team to work with and have been the biggest brand we have worked with. The working relationship with their team was really positive, the trust given in us to do our thing, the clarity of their direction to us, and I think it really shows in the product. The project with Skepta was, of course, a major one too; getting to work with him was amazing, we had a great creative relationship, and again it showed in the product. It was the first project we were able to drive everything from footwear design to apparel, accessory design, and lead creative direction for the lookbooks, campaigns, and launch events.

Where do you see Areté going in the future?

The future for Areté is to continue evolving into this full 360° product creation and storytelling studio working across footwear, full collections, spaces, and objects. Doing more spatial design like our project for Adidas. I want Areté to be at the pinnacle of all these areas of creation. It’s really exciting to see us continuing to grow across functions while remaining at the intersection of design, engineering, community, and culture.