In the latter half of the 2010s, POP Trading Company’s “POP Clips” — videoblog style reels of footage from the scene in The Netherlands and Belgium — singlehandedly programmed us away from the idea that skateboarding in those countries was predominantly done on/around cobblestones. (Still haven’t visited either, but you could understand why a McDonald’s brain might assume that, when in fact, the place’s spots can look like this.) These were lesser-known skaters, skating lesser-known spots, with every bit of the talent and style as those in Europe’s mega-scenes situated in London, Paris, Barcelona, et al.
Since crystalizing into a proper Brand, the crew moved away from the “POP Clips” in pursuit of, at first, the 2021 POP Promo, and today, into POP: The 48-Minute Video, which doubles as a scene video as much as one for a softgoods imprint.
In talking to Free about the video’s three-year production period, the POP crew was candid in acknowledging that the pursuit of a full-length video is almost always an insane undertaking — and no, to anyone who hasn’t been on the backend of a brand before, a great video doesn’t directly translate 1:1 to more sales.
All a full-length does, at the bare minimum, is mold all that effort into a tangible moment in time. For the skaters, for the filmers, for the elder statesmen cheering in the back — for the scene. Maybe you can’t hold the moment on a DVD or tape anymore, but 48 minutes of skate video is a hell of a lot more substantial than anything you threw on the timeline five years ago. And maybe in another five years, as this under-seen scene continues its growth, POP’s video could be the stitch in time that brought it to a new place.