Grind

grind
skating &
streetwear at
west oakland’s defremery park and across the world
THE FASHION ISSUE
may 2019

CURATORIAL INTRODUCTION: IDENTITY
This magazine is focused on the exploration of skateboard fashion, and in
turn, skate culture, in relation to identity. I spoke to skaters at Oakland’s Defremery
Park, to gain insight on why they skate, the community they have formed, and how
they claim a visual identity through clothing and self expression. I expected them to
be conscious of the clothes they wear and perhaps even protective over the identity
expressed through their clothing. I realized, through the conversations I had,
that as people grow older, they tend to be less likely to attach themselves to an
identity that is exclusive to the clothes they wear, as they begin to find themselves
and form an identity that is dependent on themselves as human beings, rather than
to a group that they belong to. As skateboard clothing became mainstream, some
skaters felt that tokens of their visual identity were being taken; others couldn’t
care less. As we grow older, we form an identity that is not reliant on others, or
on tangible objects, but rather on who we are as people; the experiences we have,
the roles we serve, and the things we value as a result. For many of us, identity
is closely linked to culture- culture is defined in a million different ways; from the
way we talk to the clothes we wear to our perceptions about the world around us;
this examines the way skaters experience life.
-punya sidhu
2 3

F.S.B.S.
for skaters by skaters
G:Why do you skate?
LG: I like skating, it’s my passion. I don’t
know, it’s just like a thing I grew up doing.
By 6 pm on a Thursday, skaters at Defremery Park in West Oakland have been skating
all day. Skaters of all ages, from a seven year old kid on a scooter, to 20-somethings
doing kick-flips and grinds, are getting ready to leave. The sun is setting,
and they slowly disperse, getting in a friends car, or driving off solo. Here’s
what they had to say about skating:
London Gix, 21
London Gix, 21
G: When did you get started?
LG: 11
G: Why?
LG: It wasn’t much to do- I’m from East
Oakland. It was either like, violence, or
something else with your time, so I was
G: Why do you skate?
TL: It’s crazy...I had moved to a homeless
shelter in Berkeley by the Target and by
the race track, and basically the skate
park was right next door. I used to go
there every day for like 30 days. I couldn’t
afford a skateboard then. A guy just came
up to me like “Why you don’t own a
skateboard?” I was like, “I can’t afford a
skateboard,” and he went in his car and
gave me a skateboard and ever since that
day til now I been just skating.
G: So how would you define skate culture,
if you could?
TL: Taking risks and overcoming your
fears.
G: Do you feel like skate culture and Bay Area culture are linked?
TL: Being an African male, people used to asked me “Oh, you skateboard?” I’m like “Yeah, I skateboard”,
and they used to just be amazed, and that’s like [when I was] 13; I’m about to turn 27, so for like 10,
13 years, I can see literally how it opened up to different races. For the Bay Area, it [was] more gangster,
hyphy movements, so I see how it mixed with skateboarding culture now, cause everybody loved to know a
skateboarder, and it’s just a beautiful thing. It kinda just mixed with the style of swinging your cars, hyphy
stuff, to where most people that see skateboarders, they’re like “Oh my god, like you’re crazy for doing
that. I couldn’t even do that.” So I think it’s like a lot of respect [for us] as a skateboarder to be able to
do what we do.
G: Did you ever listen to The Pack*-
Tamba Lenoh, 26
TL: ”Yeah-Vans? I remember, man they was so big that a lot of people made the fuck vans shoes song**.
But, everybody liked it. It was just something for people to enjoy and rap about. Which I love, and that’s
what I could understand from the skateboard community: they’re like “Damn, why y’all gonna just come and
take our stuff, make it even cooler.” Cause in the skate community, they love Vans, they love Thrasher, all
that. We all love it. But when it comes to the outside community, they just take it and then they just run
with it and they just like “Oh, we wearing Thrasher, we wearing Vans, let’s get it.” And it’s just like: wait,
wait wait wait wait, those are skate shoes for us to skateboard; that’s our hoodies, and y’all just tryna take
our fame and make it y’all own.
(*The Pack: Bay Area hip-hop group including members Lil B, Stunnaman, Young L, and Lil Uno, responsible
for the hit song “Vans” )
(**Fuck Vans: song by Drino Man)
just doing skateboarding, [and] going to school
and shit.
G: Did you feel like you found a community within
the skate community?
LG: Yeah I mean when the skate park was being
built there was a community starting at the same
time cause people were just starting to skate.
G: Are you tryna go pro?
LG: Nah. Hell nah. I’m just skating for fun, it’s just
a fun thing to do.
G: Why do you skate?
JD: I skate because it makes me happy...It just, it brings joy to my life, so I
decided to start doing it.
G: I know there’s a lot of people in like Japan, and like all across the world
who are like wearing these brands, and are just now trying to get into skating.
Why do you think it resonates so much across the world, with so many different
kinds of people?
JD: To be honest, I’m not sure because - at least when I was younger, when I
thought about skateboarding, I hardly saw people doing it...I’m kinda happy that
I see it happening but I don’t know why it caught on so much. It just jumped
out of nowhere, cause it’s not like- I mean we’ve had the X-Games for awhile
now, we’ve had street league going on for a couple years now.
G: Can you tell me about those things?
JD: Sure! I started watching some of the other skate contests, like some of the
SLS, the Tampa pro stuff... those are skate contests run by like actual skaters...
the X-games is kinda run by big corporations...it’s not specifically made for skaters
by skaters. A lot of the contests that I watch are by skaters, for skaters...it’s
all supported by skaters.
G: Are you tryna go pro?
Jaymise Davis, 22
Jaymise Davis, 22
JD: Me? Not at all. I’m tryna help other people go pro. Hopefully I could start
my own company and promote others, because I, personally, I’m not gonna push
myself that hard. But there are people out there that’ll just do whatever it takes
to make it big and they’re underrated: they aren’t being seen. So...I could be
that guy that could help them get that recognition.
4 5

the rise of the internet and global expansion
of streetwear and skateboard fashion
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Because the internet
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Skateboarding, once a niche and exclusive
subculture, has become mainstream. With the
rise of the internet and Instagram, youth from all
over the world have access to streetwear brands
that are rooted in skateboarding. One of the first
forerunners of the global rise of “streetwear” and
the visual identity associated with skateboarding
is Stüssy- the brand has reached international
success by focusing on markets like Japan, where
streetwear was booming in Urahara (Ura-Harajuku,
a section of Tokyo’s Harajuku district). In an interview
for Business Because of Fashion, the David Internet: Sinatra, Stüssy
CEO noted “What a young kid in Taiwan is wearing
isn’t so far off from what a young kid in New
York is wearing anymore...You got kids who know
all about Raf [Simons], who know all about Stüssy’s
history, and they don’t even have a driver’s
license.” As our interactions with each other and
with the world around us become increasingly visual,
we take more and more inspiration from what
we see on the internet, especially when brands
become accessible to kids all across the world; a
kid from rural Iowa can be just as influenced by
streetwear and subcultures like skating, which
were at one time centered on the east and west
“we’re all like
brothers...we found
skateboarding and we’re
all like a community.”
coasts of America, just by going on Instagram. 21
year old skater London Gix of Oakland commented
on the rise in popularity of skateboarding from
the internet: “It was a lot of different things, honestly...
like being on Instagram...Instagram helped
skateboarding too,” Gix said.
Instagram is a key ingredient in the popularity
of skate style; see palaceskateboards, the
Instagram page for Palace, the skatewear and
skateboard brand that featured Jonah Hill, the
creator of 2018 film mid90s, about a group of
skater kids, and a celebrity vocal about his love for
skateboarding and skate culture, in their advertisement
for their New York store (Palace has two
other stores: one in London and another in Tokyo).
Palace’s Instagram, with 1.4 million followers, features
grainy videos of skaters, shot on film, along
with pristine, fashion-y photographs of models in
their clothes. Palace’s original name was “Palace
Wayward Boys Choir”, which is in reference to the
group of skaters from South London that created
a name for themselves in the
early 2000s. The London skate scene was much
grittier and rougher than that of its California
origins, but the skaters share the same culture
and community as their West Coast counterparts,
even if they may not realize it. In an
interview with Dazed, James Edson, artist and
one of the original members of Palace Wayward
Boys Choir, noted the brotherhood that existed
within the skate scene. “Now you’ll sit down
and have a beer and a joint and be like ‘what’s
up?’, and the day you land your first kick-flip
everyone’s just stoked. Not getting on at school?
With your parents? You would go meet your
friends at South Bank, it’s a family,” said Edson.
Tamba Lenoh, a Bay Area skater known for his
viral adrenaline-charged skate tricks, including
landing impossibly high jumps, shared a similar
sentiment about the familiarity that exists at the
skate park. “I love skateboarding because we’re
all like brothers,” Lenoh said.”It’s a one-man
sport but it’s very competitive and you kinda
meet all your friends here; most of us either are
high-school dropouts or just outcasted by the
world, so`we found skateboarding and we’re all
like a community.”
As much as the internet popularized
skate culture, it was becoming mainstream far
before Instagram. In a 1992 Vogue feature on
skate subculture, Kevin Thatcher, the first editor
of Thrasher magazine, which began in San Francisco,
got at the essence of what he believed the
core attitude held by many skaters was at the
time: “‘Their idea of cool is something that bugs
you- if it offends old ladies, jocks, and preppies,
it’s all right...Skateboarding hasn’t always been
associated with a really positive attitude...It’s got
more of a doomsday outlook. I mean, what does
the future hold for kids who are fifteen now?”
Thatcher said. (he wasn’t wrong). The article also
notes how skateboarding is a 300 million dollar
industry, and how it may be “suffering the fate of
punk”; that is, being commercialized and leaving
its subculture roots. Lenoh mused on the popularity
of skate wear in fashion; “It’s just like the
recognition you get from wearing skate clothing
brands that just makes you feel like “OK, well
this not Gucci, it’s not Louis, but it’s like skate
culture and everybody mess with it,” Lenoh said.
Some things have changed since 1992,
however. When asked how he felt about the rise
of brands like Thrasher in fashion, Gix noted
how his attitude towards the dress identity that
comes with skating has changed. “Honestly, I
used to care when I was younger,” Gix said. “I
don’t really care anymore...Everything becomes
mainstream at a point, when it gets popular
enough.”
As much as skate and streetwear brands
stem from a counterculture, many of their qualities
don’t stray far from high fashion. Another
Vogue feature from 1995 details the differences
and similarities between Chanel and Supreme.
She notes how important the name and logo is
to both brands, and how it is plastered on each
of their respective pieces. Something as heavily
popularized as the Supreme box logo shares a
brand recognition not all that different from the
Chanel double C. In an ironic statement from the
piece, Tannen scoffs at the idea of a label like
Chanel trying to emulate Supreme: “You would
probably see the construction-worker jacket
translated into Chanel before you would see
Chanel knocked off for Supreme (A sweatshirt
cardigan with SUPREME on the buttons?).” How
outlandish a Supreme and Chanel collaboration
seemed in 1995, whereas in 2019, Supreme has
already released a collection with Louis Vuitton.
The emergence of streetwear finding its
way in high fashion to some, dilutes the purpose
of it; brands that stemmed from youth countercultures
and subcultures like punk and skating,
find their way in elitist and seemingly entitled
luxury brands. Virgil Abloh, the founder of Off-
White, was named the Men’s artistic director of
Louis Vuitton in March of 2018; since then, his
first collection has infused elements of more alternative
culture with help from creatives outside
the range of many other high fashion labels;
his fall 2019 show featured a performance from
British artist Devonte Hynes, aka Blood Orange,
and select models wearing baggy jeans and
silver link chains. While some may have expected
Abloh to completely revamp Louis Vuitton to
a luxury streetwear label, the collections simply
have a new perspective.
6 7

eferences
Vogue, March 1 1995; Tannen, Mary; Vogue’s View: The Rules of
Attraction
Vogue, September 1 1992; Rugoff, Ralph; Vogue’s View: Get Big!
Vice, May 5th, 2017; Joe Bish; Palace Skateboards Comes to the US
Business of Fashion, June 3, 2015; Jian Deleon; How Stüssy Became
a $50 Million Global Streetwear Brand Without Selling Out
Dazed, October 8th 2015, Kane, Ashleigh; The London skate collective
that changed the game
8 9

grind. may 2019.
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everyday power structures?
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