Restoring More Than Shoes: Vinnie Tao from Sneaker Pharm & the Punk Ethos of Repair

On this weeks episode, I’m sitting down with footwear wizard Vinnie Tao from Sneaker Pharm. Vinnie loves shoes. Restoring them, tweaking them, Frankensteining em. Anything that’ll give them a longer, better or more loved life. He’s an appreciator of great design and the value that can create in an object and I’m buzzing to chat to him about his combined love of footwear culture and sustainability.If you’re loving this series of My Own Garms and you want to show some love for what we’re doing here. Get over to pattern.com/myowngarms and chuck us a few quid. There’s a few levels depending on how flush your feeling and if you’re skint, that’s cool. We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing anyway. Big shout out to the musicians whose tunes you’ve heard on this series. Ocsar Kenny, Sam Black, Dave Shurr. Very grateful to you lot for sharing your ace music with us. And also a big thanks to Trailberg who are supporting the series. Appreciate you a lot.Right let’s get to it. This is Vinnie Tao on My Own Garms…Vinnie from Sneaker Pharm joins us to talk about repairing kicks, restoring memory, and building a fashion philosophy rooted in punk, purpose, and play. From the smell of waxed jackets to the rise of repair culture, this episode digs into what makes good design last — not just physically, but emotionally. It’s about more than trainers. It’s about the stories they carry.If you love this ep then drop us a comment on YouTube, a review on Apple Podcasts, or a comment on Spotify Get at us on the socials and let us know what you thought, we’re @myowngarms everywhereIf you wanna support us with a little donation head to patron.com/myowngarms If you want to advertise with us, slide into the DMs. We’ll have a chat.My Own Garms is a video podcast. You can watch on ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠. There's gonna be loads of clips on ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Insta⁠⁠ (@myowngarms). But if you just want the audio, then you can find us wherever you usually listen to your podcasts.