About London Sneaker School
Hackney-based London Sneaker School (LSS) is a footwear workshop concept built around education and community.
Founded by Jase Cooper, LSS has created a buzz locally, creating opportunities for individuals to express themselves through specialised shoemaking courses, whilst learning a unique craft as an alternative to university.
In 2023, LSS reached out to us for support with a pop-up store on Savile Row, an exciting project that exposed them to their biggest audience and footfall yet.
Looking to the future, the team's determined to grow through new ventures that will make LSS even bigger and better, encouraging more young people to get involved in sneaker-making and educating their students on launching a sneaker brand.
London Sneaker School's founder and director, Jase Cooper, said:
Building a brand through a passion for footwear…
"As a kid, I knew I wanted to have a creative career. I loved basketball shoes, I was set on one day designing them for a living.
"I had this dream in mind but no real way to make it my reality, so I went down the traditional university path, not really knowing what to study, I settled on industrial design and started working for a few notable footwear brands such as Salomon and Pentland. I bounced around a bit and was always on the lookout for something new.
"I then started designing in the tech world, I really liked the idea of working for new businesses and start-ups in tech.
"It's an area that's always been exciting to me. As a teenager I developed basketball forums online and learned how to code on MySpace, so naturally I thought about combining this with art to see where it could take me.
"With my background in footwear and tech and having been taught how to make shoes by our co-founder, when Covid hit in 2020, I took the downtime as an opportunity to rethink and with that decided to create my own ethical footwear company, London Sneaker School.
"Initially, it was an experiment, but from my previous roles, I had confidence in designing, branding and marketing sneakers. I thought to myself, "Why don't I try teaching people how to do this themselves?"
"I didn't have the capital to start a business, and I quickly learnt that it'd be really difficult to build a successful brand without money or financial backing behind me. However, I knew a business loan from a straightforward lender, like Love Finance, could provide me with the injection of cash that I needed to make the Savile Row opportunity a reality.
Unlocking new opportunities through Love Finance
"Bringing to life a concept as unique as a sneaker school requires a strong brand, determination, and a willingness to experiment. But we couldn't achieve this without financial backing.
"I completely understand the stigma of raising finance as a start-up but ultimately, I appreciate that to make money, you need money. Working with Love Finance helped us overcome our challenges quickly and unlocked a load of new opportunities we weren't expecting.
"In 2023, our temporary pop-up store opened its doors in the historic home of world-class fashion craftsmanship, Savile Row. Thanks to the financial support from Love Finance, we could achieve a huge milestone in our journey that built on the success we'd already had from our workshop in Hackney and with the people and brands we'd previously worked with. It was at our pop-up that one of our greatest opportunities to date, a senior executive at Paris Saint-Germain F.C. just walked through the door, offering us the chance to collaborate with the football club and Nike.
"Love Finance made it possible for us to make the LSS dream to showcase our passion and craft to a wider fashion-hungry audience a reality. Without them, it might never have been achieved, but now we've managed to increase our exposure and realise our future potential to grow."
How we're expanding our impact…
"Looking to the future, we're determined to continue to break boundaries. We want to help anyone who walks through our doors achieve their own business success, and to do that, we need to be able to provide a creative space to learn alongside other likeminded fashion and sneaker enthusiasts.
"Our plan now is to enhance our offering even more with updated accessible workshops and courses, in a space where people feel part of our community and are inspired to learn and create."
