Melody Ehsani at the StockX All-Star Weekend Pop-Up in Chicago, 2020
When it came time to envision the rest of her life, Melody Ehsani bucked expectations and instead of pursuing a career in law flipped expectations to create a line of a jewelry meant to empower other women with her story. Soon after, the world came knocking with a slew of sneaker collaborations, not least of which is the recent Melody Ehsani x Jordan 1 Fearless that’s inspired incredible price premiums. Most recently, Ehsani worked with Vic Mensa as a part of StockX’s All-Star Weekend 2020 activation in Chicago with proceeds going to The Common Ground Foundation.
We caught up with Ehsani in Chicago for another installment of That’s 5.
The following interview has been lightly edited.
What influences you?
I am influenced by thought, forward-thinking thought leaders and new concepts in growth and nature. Usually, whenever I get deeper within myself, it comes to me somehow. I do a lot of meditating. It doesn’t always come through meditation, but when I go there, I feel like I start to happen to run into things or thoughts or people that are exactly what I’m looking for if that makes sense. For example, I’ve been on this whole new thing ever since Kobe died, I’ve really been thinking about death, and just so much death has been happening. So I’ve really been thinking about it in a deeper way. Then just today I went to lunch with two of the StockX girls, and we were all exactly on the same page. I ended up having this incredible conversation where I learned a lot. They learned a lot. I think it was just all because we were on the same thought wavelength. So you kind of pick it up from the most random places.
What’s the most overrated?
To be honest, I think fashion right now seems to be, really… just the hype of everything. I think hype is overrated. It’s very come today, gone tomorrow. There isn’t a lot of iconic, stable things and maybe that’s a testament to our time, maybe people are just thinking a lot of doom and gloom so they’re doing like quick and easy things. And social media is just where everything is so fast. I feel like we’re just constantly looking for our things outside of us versus slowing down and going in. There’s just a lot of hype.
What’s the most underrated?
I think what’s really underrated is small things, I feel like we’re constantly looking for the next big thing to do, but I feel like doing small things is so important. Subtle things like… Every single revolution or big thing that’s happened always started really, really small and grew. So it’s making those small connections with people, creating small groups of like-minded communities versus trying to create these big things all the time. I think starting small is really underrated now.
What are you most excited about right now?
The Lakers winning the championships this year. I’m a huge fan. Ever since I was a kid really, I used to watch with my dad. Now, I’m married to an even bigger fan than me, so we’re both fucked.
What’s next for you?
What’s next for me is… I think that I’ve always been a really shy person, and I haven’t talked a lot about my story and my process, and I think what’s next is me being more vocal about those kinds of things. I think it’s really important to share stories, and if mine has an opportunity to connect with anybody else to help them grow, then I want to do that.
