🔑 Introduction, Interviews & Collages by Farran Golding
📷 Headline Composition: Román González by Alex Pires for Free Skate Mag, Momiji Nishiya by Allan Carvalho for Mess Skate Mag, Corey Bittle by Tyler Storm Brady for Skate Jawn, Alexis Sablone for Golden Hour and Brad Cromer for PLANK by Matt Price
Walking around chairs wrapped in merlot fabric, the waiters of L’Entracte Brasserie in Paris went about their morning shift, placing silverware and wine glasses, unfazed by the camera flashes of photographer Alex Pires.
The restaurant faces the Palais Garnier Opera House, a building that is almost two centuries old, and as iconic as other Parisian landmarks such as Notre-Dame and Sacré-Coeur. Outside the opera house, an image of the Palais Garnier’s façade was depicted on a temporary wall, producing an illusion the French call “trompe-l’œil.” It directed visitors to entrances above and below a stairway. Two hours before the venue opened at around 7 A.M. on a damp, December 2024 day, Román González threw himself into the temporary façade of the Palais, clinging onto a frontside wallride down the stairs.
