Welcome to the WNBA Kicks “Women’s Crush Wednesday”. We will introduce and highlight women in kicks! The first female to be highlighted is Ms. Damaries Negron also known as @KickitwitDD on Instagram. This powerful influencer has worked with many brands and is an ambassador for equality for women in the sneaker culture. Kickitwitdd is from the South Bronx in New York. She started collecting sneakers in 2007 via a sibling rivalry. Her older sister loved sneakers and worked hard to buy herself the most popular sneakers. When DD was able to get a job and received her first paycheck, she purchased the Women’s Air Jordan 14 “Linen”. This started the collection she would grow to date. She indulged in Nike Dunks, Air Maxes, and Timberland boots.
During that time, DD was shopping in her borough at her local Mom and Pop shops. Her local Mom & Pop shops were either Jeans Plus, Dr. Jays, Jimmy Jazz, Footlocker, and other stores in Fordham and Third Avenue 149th Street. Back then, some people did not associate the Mom & Pop shops by their name, they would associate the stores by location so that it could be kept as a secret so that people wouldn’t go and cop all the heat.
When DD enrolled at SUNY Potsdam, she made the decision to choose a career path in the footwear industry. That opportunity did not open for her yet, so she worked on personal branding. Marketing herself to over 50k followers providing insider footwear information and helping customers connect to sneaker they want. While she was in college, she was camping out for sneakers and also met people inside of the street culture or on social who had the same interest and likes as DD; collecting sneakers, talk about the product, and improve on the sneaker culture by giving feedback to the reps of the sneaker brands. One of DD’s obstacles during this was she was the only woman who was doing all of these things, which meant there was a lot of conflict with men, and she had a lot to prove as a collector and as a person who talks about the product.
DD’s journey started when she worked for AtmosNYC. Even though she was the underdog at that store, she made sure her voice was heard because she wanted to make sure these brands know people’s feedback about their product. After AtmosNYC, DD managed sneaker stores and also interned at Kicksonfire where she worked on highlighting female collectors through a top 5 vlog series. During this process, she met a lot of women in the culture that had the same views as herself. As well, DD was notarizing everything of what was going on in the sneaker culture with women by doing videos, attending focus groups with brands, and also did a collaboration with women in the sneaker culture. Once all of this was happening, brands started to get in contact with DD and she was being recognized for her opinions, and collabing with women. She moved on to create the kickitwitdd365, a social media platform to highlight individual ladies and their personal collections via photos and bios. Some people call DD the voice for the women in the sneaker culture. DD’s favorite brand is Ewing Athletics, she is also sponsored by them. DD has also been sponsored by brands and also uses those opportunities to speak on the issues women face in the sneaker culture and also how can things improve for women in the sneaker culture. DD is now doing projects about women in the sneaker culture and also still doing reviews about sneakers and keeps updating the sneaker community of what’s going on and updating on future releases.
