Skating writ large prides itself on a “no rules, bro!” ethos. #Menswear, an entity with which skating has become increasingly intertwined of late (via Vogue Skateboarding Magazine, etc.), has all kinds of rules. No black belt with brown shoes. No wearing white after Labor Day. One’s tie can’t go past one’s belt. Skating has no such faux pas — except for MAYBE brand-mixing — i.e. one can’t wear a Venture shirt if one is skating Indys or Vans socks if you’re wearing Nikes.
But what if I told you that skaters have curated their own sartorial code for decades — painstakingly color-coordinating their shoes, shirts, hats, and even spots? However, the modern-day thrift store aesthetic has left color-coordination by the wayside, even as color-blocking seemed to make a comeback last year, or some shit. So, in conjunction with New York Fashion Week, enjoy this retrospective of color coordination while you’re waiting to get into the Wang party or whatever.
With many unseasonably warm days this winter, we were already able to see some of 2016’s #trending formations. And with a seasonably bitter cold #NYFW, we were able to sit there with hungover stares and contemplate it all. Keep in mind that the to-be-mentioned hungover contemplations may seem awfully dated by the time of the Polar video’s stateside premiere in March. Our most impressionable and yearning-for-inspiration L.E.S. colleagues will inevitably be Bloby-fied come April.
Lo-Def 5050 Combos
For many of us, 180s and shove-its into and out of 5050 grinds were our earliest flirtations with combining tricks. As our palettes became more refined and our skateboarding matured in accordance with the times, these were inevitably phased out and thrown into the pile known as “little kid tricks.” That pile, by nature, sits there and stagnates — unless of course you ran out of tricks to try in S.K.A.T.E. and need a sex change to give the dude a letter, or the even rarer occasion that skateboarding collectively chooses to to re-embrace a little kid staple like the varial flip.
Contest footage isn’t exactly #onbrand for QS but some pretty wild stuff wentdown at 50 Kent and the L.E.S. Park for Damn AM. They even fixed the crack in front of the double set so we can all skate it every day! Meet you there in five.
Kinda hard to debate Barcelona not being the greatest skate city on earth when you can watch a six-minute edit from there that spends its time at practically none of the most commonly known spots. “Let’s just put a bank here.”
With thin ledges trending hard after Aaron Herrington’s Dime Glory Challenge win, Kingpin compiled a #current #listicle of the all-time greats on narrow surfaces.
QS Rap Desk: Hotbox Social’s Young Thug “Leaks & Loosies” compilation from earlier this summer is actually better put-together than Slime Season, though the latter features mastered versions of some of the same songs.
Quote of the Week Sexually Active Young Lady: “I’m not sure, I might’ve only fucked him because his bio said ‘free spirit.'” Tron Jenkins: “Don’t be mad at him because he went to college.”
2015’s version of skateboard literature’s longest running summer wrap-up is here: Dubai or Not Dubai – Frozen in Carbonite’s S.O.T.S. x P.O.T.S. post. “Indeed, using the most powerful communication medium of our time—Instagram—as a yardstick, following the most popular thirst trap accounts down an Instagram wormhole leads to a dark place where every comment is either in a foreign alphabet or ‘Come to Dubai.'” (P.S. Who the HELL is responsible for deleting that Tiago Lemos We Are Blood remix from FB? Someone please re-upload it. P.P.S. “Stick Talk” > “I Serve the Base” for Tiago maybe. P.P.P.S. Can confirm Future cuts the music off and puts his thumb in the air after the “I ain’t got no manners…”-part when performing “Stick Talk.”)
Ten years prior to Canada’s current #moment, it had a smaller, more skate-centric #moment when videos like North were dropping. Village Psychic revisited the 2004 Anti-Social video from that era. (Anti-Social has a new one dropping next spring, btw.)
Most of my friends rocked the Staples way heavier as far as Lakais went, but there was definitely a later cult around the Manchesters. SMLTalk has a requiem for maybe the last Lakai shoe to make an imprint in the skate footwear landscape.
Thanks to perhaps the most heavily reblogged trick of 2015 (and maybe a surging interest in Canadian exports), Spencer Hamilton earned a place in the hearts of many who otherwise forget that Canada often produces superior skateboarders to America. Supra took notice, and made a “best of” part for him to bring anyone else up to speed.
Bronze’s “ask me anything” department is right — it doesn’t matter what crew “shitted on” whatever other crew in New York, because New York skateboarding never fully recovered from Dave Mayhew’s stay here in 1999:
The backside flip off the big bank over the police barrier is legitimately still the 8th or 10th best trick done in city limits after Westgate’s 2x ollies on Canal Street, Kalis’ fakie flip at Newport, Jake’s wallride, Rieder’s impossible, and a bunch of stuff Zered has done. Also, forgetting that part was a massive oversight here.
That being said, Pyramid County’s Ripplescape video is solid, and features a handful of the more insane things to happen here in recent months (pull-in nosegrind at Columbus Park, frontside flip the Seaport bench, etc.) Way more enjoyable than any other U.S. tour vid in recent history.
Spot Updates: The downtown Brooklyn post office spot is now knobbed.
Quote of the Week: “Having a French bulldog is like buying a used Jaguar. It’s the best and you’ll love the thing, but it’s going to cost you a ton of money.” — Barnes
