Syesha Thomas, a former basketball player for Oregon State University, is now an attorney who created her own shoe accessory brand called Lonely Sinn. Each shoe pendant is designed to hold a personal symbolic meaning for the person wearing it. Thomas hopes the pendants remind people to live in the moment.
Thomas shared how she got into fashion and the inspiration behind the name Lonely Sinn, and the meaning of their slogan.
As a former basketball player and now an attorney, what made you get into fashion?
I never intended to get into fashion. I have a unique style of my own. I worked as a store stalker for Abercrombie and Gap as a kid. That’s how I got my first Jordans and my first Penny Hardaways to play in. My intention when I started Lonely Sinn wasn’t to get into the fashion world. We like to say at Lonely Sinn, these pendants are a love letter to yourself. It just happens to be in fashion and that happens to be the medium, because I love shoes. So, while I wasn’t intentional about that, I’m glad we’re in this space. I’m glad it’s the space that allows us to represent ourselves.
Can you tell us more about your slogan Adorn Your Kicks?
The premise behind that is, everybody can get out there and get the new J’s, the Jordan 4’s, the Jordan 1’s, the Nike Air Penny shoes, the Yeezys, or insert brand here, but they all look the same. So with Lonely Sinn, it is an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself, express yourself, and beautify your shoes. On the other side of it, each one of our standard pendants has a meaning a deeper meaning to help ground you as well. So let’s be cute, but also bring our whole selves and everything that we do.
What is the inspiration behind the name Lonely Sinn?
Well, I don’t know if it was intentional, but you paused on lonely. While they’re together the name for me means let’s not be so stuck in the world, so stuck in what we’re doing with our heads down, not looking up and experiencing the world, experiencing others, and bringing our ancestors with us. One day we will wake up and it will be lonely. For me, that will be a sin if that’s in my life. I wake up five years from now and I’m like, “Man, I accomplished all this stuff. I did all this stuff but I didn’t experience it, because I was too focused on the end goal.” Then I wake up, I don’t have any friends, and I alienated my family because I’m focused on success, focused on this, or that next big thing. So it was important to say, let’s just put it out there. It’s a lonely sin being so materialistic and worldly. It’s not lost on me that these are shoe pendants but they’re significant. It’s a complete love letter to yourself.
