Grad student and longtime “sneaker head” Atulya Chaganty at Reebok’s headquarters in Canton, MA.
Atulya Chaganty MID 17 has loved everything about athletic shoes for as long as she can remember. “Eight-year-old me wanted to yell, ‘I want to be a sneaker designer when I grow up!’” but at the time she didn’t think her family would take that idea seriously. But in doing a summer internship with leading fitness apparel brand Reebok in Canton, MA, the Industrial Design grad student and longtime “sneaker head” got to fulfill a childhood wish – and explore a future in the field.
“Being able to come full circle and intern in an industry I daydreamed about when I was a little kid was really cool,” said Chaganty, who specialized in material investigation while working with Reebok’s Running Footwear Development team. Over the course of the 10-week internship, she participated in materials selection, field performance testing and other vital aspects of the research-and-development process for the company’s Spring/Summer 2017 line. She also enjoyed the fringe benefit of being the “lucky sample size” for testing prototypes.
What sets the sneakers Chaganty worked on apart from their predecessors or competitors? “I really can’t tell you!” she insists, but says that the end result proves Reebok’s willingness to “take bold risks with design” while also keeping an eye on green manufacturing practices. “We’ve gone from a world that didn’t think much about sustainability to one that wants to be hyper-sustainable,” says the designer, who was pleased to see a serious dedication to sustainability taking root throughout the organization.