Kelly Gunner is the founder, creative director, and designer behind TOMME.
TOMME (tomboy x femme x homme) launched in 2019 when Kelly started posting her handmade basketball purses — real, court-tested leather balls, transformed with a lining, zipper opening, and metal hardware. Fueled by the symbiotic relationship between basketball and streetwear, TOMME’s unique aesthetic has evolved beyond just its most famous silhouette over the past few years. The TOMME-verse has fostered custom championship rings, bedazzled micro crossbodys, bags made from a mosaic of sneaker parts, and remixed takes on the branding of countless sports teams + fashion brands. Through every limited drop and one of one prototype, the brand’s cult following has multiplied.
Luckily, Kelly had a few minutes to tell us what she’s been up to.
Name: Kelly Gunner
Age: 37
Zodiac Sign: Cancer ♋
Where are you from, and where are you right now?
Originally I am from a small town in Norfolk, which is where I grew up until the age of 18 and then moved to London. Right now I am sat in my house, in a town in Hertfordshire where I live and have my studio.
What’s your first memory with streetwear?
I was introduced to streetwear or sportswear through my dad, who gave me an old Red Sox jumper when I was maybe 10 — which I wore to death. From there, I was exploring my style and fashion all the time. I discovered brands through the music I was listening to, and through the sports I was into (football, skateboarding, basketball). I remember always looking for the most unique pair of sneakers I could find for my outfits. Sneaker culture wasn’t like it is now — there weren’t drops at this frequency, there wasn’t the SNKRS app or the breadth of stores, resellers etc. — you had to go to stores and hunt for them, or work with what you could get.
If you had to compress your personal style into one outfit, what would it be?
Cargos and Jordans are staples to any outfit. Always an oversized hood or sweater, and then my little basketball necklace.
You can only wear three shoes for the rest of your life — what are they?
Streetwear style icon:
In the modern definition, right now I’m a huge fan of Aleali May. But I think you can’t appreciate what we have now without looking back to people like Misa Hylton, SWV, and Leah McSweeney who were early trailblazers.
Your last (or favorite) Instagram follow: Last follow was @jujubballin
What’s your biggest creative/career milestone so far? What’s your biggest creative/career goal right now?
Not my biggest, but one of the first milestones I hit was working with Adidas UK early on in TOMME. As someone who is into sneakers, being approached by Adidas to work on a special project early on was mind blowing for me, and I’m really proud of that collaboration. Biggest creative goal right now is expanding the brand range and ensuring that we are evolving and innovating on the products that we do! We have a few things in development right now that we will be dropping later this year that we’re super excited about!
What’s your dream collaboration?
Dream collaboration for me and TOMME would be Nike / Jordan. I know that might be lame or an ‘obvious’ choice to some people, but they are so synonymously linked with basketball and the culture. It’s a brand I’ve loved since I was a kid, and is still my go-to sneaker. So I'm manifesting that for TOMME.
What are you currently working on?
Lots of things that I cant share right now! We have two really big collaborations that are coming in the first half of the year that we cant WAIT to share! One is a huge institution of basketball, and the other is a classic Y2K brand. The designs are sick, I’m super proud of them and I can’t wait to drop them!
When do you feel the most empowered?
it sounds cliché, but when I am carrying one of my pieces. One of the reasons the concept came about was because I felt so empowered carrying my basketball around and I wanted to replicate that feeling.
What needs to change about the current streetwear landscape, to make it more inclusive?
inclusive sizing on sneakers would be a good place to start. There are other things, like putting women in more decision making roles within streetwear brands, media, etc. which is slowly changing, but there is still a way to go. There are some people pushing through (Like Yoon and Melody Ehsani), but women still have to work twice as hard to prove themselves — whether that’s as a collector, as a business woman, or a brand. But making sneakers gender neutral and inclusive of sizing is a good start 🙂
What woman in streetwear/sneaker history would you like to see get her flowers?
To be honest, there are a lot I can think of, but maybe April Walker or Sybil Pennix. Sybil was instrumental in getting big fashion houses to work with hip hop and RnB artists early on, combining a mix of luxury and round-the-way fashion which is just synonymous with streetwear now.