#TRENDWATCH2014: Preliminary Spring Report

doubles

Photo via The Local Weather. Is #normcore still a #thing?

Spring greeted us with a 54-degree day, a box and a barrier at the T.F. yesterday. However, a spring trend report seems silly before everyone has seen the Supreme video and adjusted accordingly. All of this stuff may be outdated by the end of next weekend, after “cherry” has been given time to marinate. This does not mean the developments discussed below are unimportant, only that they may be superseded by ones with longer staying power in the near future.

Light Ass Denim™

It’s no secret that anyone who looked chilled-as-shit on a skateboard during the #nineties indulged heavily in Light Ass Denim™ (LADs™.) For yet-to-be-uncovered reasons, the proceeding decade did not look upon denim — of any form or wash — as kindly. Sure, textile industry lobbyists who covertly unloaded a surplus of brown chino fabric to the only people who would buy already dirt-colored pants in the 2000s had *something* to do with it (See: Pappalardo, Anthony), but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Why has no research been done on why Fully Flared is the most denim-deficient skate video ever made?

The twenty-year resurgence period of LADs™ and their ties to prosperity has come like clockwork. Did you really think the parallels between LAD™-heavy footage output and subsequent S.O.T.Y. covers in 1993/1994 and 2013/2014 were a coincidence? Fashion goes in cycles, obvs.

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The 2013 New York Skateboarding Year in Review: 20-16

BEST SPOT OF 2013

5 P.M. updates are stupid, but whatever. Got a bit caught up today. Thanks to anyone who caught the preview of the new QS “Best of” clip at the Nike screening yesterday. That clip will be online at the end of the week. Back to our annual wrap-up series…

#s 25 through 21 are here.

20. Houston Street Construction Becomes the New Bank to Green Box

The first installment of this series concluded with a list of 2013’s best spots. Astute readers of QS should know that it reflected office favorites, and not all-encompassing New York skater favorites. We don’t ollie down what we cannot ollie up; professionals and “good” skateboarders abide by a far different creed. Last year, visitors were enamored with the green metal ledge in Harlem, until it mysteriously vanished in January. (Everyone was sick of seeing tricks on that thing anyway.)

Scrambling to find a fresh New York spot that would prove to sponsors that “I didn’t just get drunk and make out with girls with shitty tattoos the entire time I was there,” good skateboarders did what they do best: like, saw the world differently, dude. And so, you couldn’t sit for a minute on the Houston steps this past summer without seeing a pack of skateboarders cruise past, with their filmer towing a hundred-pound backpack ten feet behind them. With yesterday’s release of the new Zoo York vid, companies began an outpour of footage on obstacles that are otherwise the bane of every lower Manhattan driver’s existence.

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#SKATEEVERYFEWDAYS

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Check out this clip of Tony Durao, undoubtedly one of the most talented young skaters out east right now, skating the Nike Go Skate Day barge from last weekend. Tony’s new web part will go live on QS next Monday, July 8. It’s insane.

Not as exciting (unlike the kids, we can only skate every few days, hence the #skateverydamnday hashtag’s appropriation for the socialite 21-and-over crowd), but here’s the forty seconds of footage we were able to procure in a few hours of skating on the barge. Mainly posting this because it includes Corey Rubin sightings and those are hard to come by outside of John Wilson-produced videos. There are rumors going around about the obstacles from that park getting donated somewhere, which would be nice considering it’s better than the Tribeca Park.

Wow, Chrome Ball is shutting down :(

In brighter news, Chrome Ball has a sick new post from the weekend dedicated to the art of curb skating, though people really need to relax with assuming everything young people do now is done for the sake of “hipster 80s throwback irony.”

Never saw this when it came out in 2012 — Sneeze magazine interviews Chad Muska about his first board graphic, providing some interesting details on how the skate industry works, specifically how a board gets made and printed.

An iPhone clip from the crew behind the \m/ video. There’s also discussion about art, influences and human nature in the comments for this non-iPhone clip from the same squad.

They started uploading more parts from Mama’s Boys on YouTube. Only sixty left.

Some B-roll from the great In Crust We Trust video. (Full video here.)

Boil the Ocean discusses the value of powerslides in 2013 and contends that Adidas web clips are the new Transworld videos.

Speaking of Adidas web clips, with their latest Madrid venture, Rodrigo TX joins some lofty company in the running for best fakie flip ever done, likely somewhere between Kalis at Newport (the undebatable #1 on this list) and Jerry Hsu at Three Up Three Down (the less-fashionable SF one.) Fakie flips are a big topic around here.

“Stop it, we give McDonalds hundreds every day.”

Someone made this.

Quote of the Week: “Coming back to New York is like getting out of jail.” — Billy Rohan. Right, because where else does this happen?

The Knicks are stupid, but what else is new?

#TRENDWATCH2012: Final Fall/Winter Report

The summer is over, there’s snow on the ground, Barack Obama has been re-elected, and with no “We Found Love” to guide us through the static this year, we are left with a mess of developments that are harder to pinpoint as genuine movements than #trends of earlier cycles. There has been no defining #trend this fall, just miscellany with varying levels of staying power. Seven key observations below.

Earth Tones

Greens and browns are known to have wardrobe visibility spikes in October, as fashionable skateboarders depart from greyscale to indulge the fall spectrum, but they have stuck around longer than usual for FW12. Please note that earth tones are not a #trend but a staple for two distinct demographics: 1) Skaters from Florida / skaters from New Jersey who are commonly mistaken as being from Florida, and 2) People whose favorite video part circa 2008-2010 was Pappalardo in Fully Flared.

Swishy Pants

Analysts expect that increased tolerance of earth tones is due to the re-canonization of camo. By that same token, the heavily #trending category of comfort-wear has provided widespread adoption of skating in sweatpants. And where is there to go once camo is the norm and everyone is at peace with sweats? Swishy pants, obviously.

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Based on a 25-Cent Story

Four-word Review of Based on a T.R.U. Story: Pluto is way better.

While on the topic of 2 Chainz, there is another round of Death Video throwaways edited to his insistence of starting a riot.

The next thing you should watch today is Manolo’s “Best of” Jovontae Turner mixtape. It puts particular emphasis on the proper form of a 360 flip, and is edited to a RBL Posse song closely associated with one of the more infamous PWBC episodes.

Even when Alien Workshop riders are presented outside the context of an Alien Workshop clip, they are contractually obligated to have their skating surrounded by video “art.” A minute of new Jake Johnson footage for Brick Harbor, plus mandatory shots of lightbulbs, smoke, sparklers, etc. (Our editing department is currently re-editing all of Jake’s recent footage to 50 Cent as a sequel to this.)

The Chrome Ball Incident has a sick Zered Bassett post up.

There is an upcoming skate video named after the (better) Chief Keef song that doesn’t have an annoying Kanye remix. 3Hunna is a video by the Endless Grind crew out of North Carolina. Features a new Connor Champion part.

We missed this month-old early entry to the “Summer Trip to New York” clip cycle. The residents surrounding a certain park on 8th Avenue sure do have a lot of “real” issues to worry about. Apparently, you deserve to go to prison for skateboarding.

Some kids from Jersey threw together a pretty cool 19-minute mini video filmed in New York and outlying areas. Shout out to everyone who takes a NJ Transit train to skate Manhattan every day. NJ Transit suucckks.

Black Dave is opening up for Juicy J at an event in Brooklyn this Thursday.

2012 is weird, man. Dylan Rieder, ASAP Rocky, Zoe Kravitz and other people in the September issue of Vogue. Looks like Rieder settled for Alexander Wang as a fashion sponsor instead of joining Alex Olson on Chanel.

Is poetry the new VHS?

Well, now we know the answer to last November’s question about whether or not dollar burgers could steal some marketshare from New York’s dollar slice industry. A resounding “NO.” Hopefully, no one went in there to try it out.

Quote of the Week: “Slappying curbs is like talking to girls, you just have to press up on them a bit.” — Andre Page


Got a cruiser re-stock in. Tees this week. Both available online (in store?) soon.