Supreme pay homage to fellow New York native and one of the worlds most influential and celebrated graffiti artists - Blade in their latest release.
From the early age of just 15, Blade has been prevalent on the street art scene, busy dubbing on NY's subway in the early 70's, by the 80's he had already earned his title as "King Of Graffiti" with over 5,000 trains bearing his work. Throughout his career Blade's work has remained unique, maintaining a traditional approach towards lettering and characters, with imaginative designs focused around perspective, abstraction, and geometry. Blade was also responsible for founding iconic graffiti crew 'The Crazy 5'.
For their latest drop, Supreme deliver a five graphic tees, one focused around the notorius Gucci Mane, as well as a hoody, long and short sleeve tees, skateboard decks and a pin, all of which featuring artwork from Blade himself.
The collection will be available at the brands London, Paris, LA and NY locations, as well as online, from Thursday October 6th.
Karsten Kleppan and Jan Jenrick Kongstein have been busy in their native Norway this Summer, shredding various spots across the country, all captured in this awesome new clip from Pekka Løvås for Nike SB. Watch the full video above.
Almost a year to the day since Vans and Dime unveiled their popular Slip-On Pro model to the world, the pair come together once again to present a new three-piece capsule, which sees reworks of the classic Old Skool and the lesser known Fairline model.
Starting with the popular 90's silhouette, the Fairline looses some of its iconic bulky look, stripped out from the inside out and updated with performance features to help combat the rigours of today’s uncompromising action sports standards. Arriving in a "Dream Blue", the icy rework features a tonal puffy sidestripe on the side panels and custom moulded Dime logo on the tongue, with a hardwearing suede applied to the entirety of the upper. All of this sits on top of a Vans’ Pro Lite Cupsole construction and Vans’ Ultracush HD sockliner to ensure a comfortable ride. Rounding off the capsule is two clean takes of the ever popular Old Skool Pro silhouette, offered up in a 'Marshmallow White" and "Blue Nights" colour options, both pairs feature tonal branding and stark white lacing, which compliment the mid sole. All three pairs feature translucent outsoles, with Dime branding on the bottom of the Old Skools.
Bryan, Warehouse Manager of Dime had this to say on the release...
‘’We are overjoyed that the good folks at Vans let us bring back their timeless Fairlane silhouette for this project. Intense physical activity can really make your feet sweat and it’s important to stay cool. The objective here was to build the iciest kicks ever,”
The Vans x Dime AW16 Capsule will be landing at select European retailers on October 8th, including Welcome Skate Store and Slam City Skates
In what is perhaps the most important skate documentary of this year, Vice Sport’s Giovanni Reda sits down with one of skateboardings most worshipped figures – Brian Anderson, on what it’s like being a gay professional skateboarder. The video speaks to Brian alongside some of his closest friends and fellow pro’s on his experience growing up skateboarding, living with his secret, the response from his peers and why he chose to come out now.
It’s an essential bit of viewing that you can check out in full above.
At the start of September we had some familiar faces from the DC squad roll through to share some summer vibes and put on a biblical display of skateboarding. One of the highlights was without a doubt getting a chance to have a chat with former SOTY, Wes Kremer. Our friends over at Glazed were kind enough to close the doors and provide donuts and trees to christen the interview, that by the end of which we were all truly glazed & confused. With a positive attitude, hilarious sense of humour and the best Madars Apse impression we’ve ever heard, Wes is one of the funniest people we’ve ever had the pleasure of talking to. This is the Wes Kremer interview…
DC and your other sponsors seem to hook it up pretty good with all the places you’ve been to on trips. Where do you reckon the true Mecca of skateboarding is after everything you’ve seen?
There’s multiple man for sure. I guess people would say the Mecca of Europe would of course be Macba, Barcelona. People from all over the world go there.
Barca’s always a good trip!
Every time definitely! Spain’s one of my favourite places to go for sure. Barca’s one of the world Meccas. Of course there’s LA, New York, San Francisco; California in general for sure.
And where’s your favourite spot?
San Diego for sure! It’s a good time you should come out and visit. I’ll definitely greet you with a donut and a spliff to return the favour! [Laughs]
On a deeper note what do you think about skateboarding and the mainstream with the corporate giants dipping their fingers in skateboarding today?
I guess it’s just the way the world turns. Skating’s escalated to this point so it’s inevitable. I’m not a big fan of it because you’ve got the major corporations taking a lot of money from skating and that’s just pushing out the smaller brands. I guess we need to get more skaters against the corporations. It’s fucked because they have the money to get their shit out there and people who already recognise them from whatever previous sports just assume it’s the best shit you know? It’s gotta go back to the millennium era when people were like “Aw D3s they’re the best”. Somehow those went insanely mainstream you know what I mean? Es, Etnies, Osiris, Circa; they were all skate companies ruling the mainstream market for a while.
They used to drop some insane colourways back in the day.
Yeah the Muska’s dude! The Muska’s were goin’ off for sure!
Didn’t G-shock fly you and a pretty strong squad to Tokyo a few years back?
Yeah it was an epic experience; most insane contest I’ve ever been to. Skateboarding, BMX, BMX freestyle and breakdancing. There was pretty much this giant arena, all this crazy music; it was so fun.
Did you get a load of free G-shock shit?
Yeah I got 2 watches because they flew me out two years in a row!
Serious question though… Does wearing a G-shock make you better at skateboarding?
[Laughs] 100 percent man you’re never late! That was the one downside about the contest cause you had to wear a watch. You had to wear this fat G-shock while you skated. I definitely slammed on it a couple times n’ scratched it up.
Killed the wrist?
Oh wrist, Gone! [laughs]
You’ve made it clear in plenty of other interviews that you’re not huge on promoting yourself and your skating through social media. Beyond skateboarding what do you think about social media as a whole? Do you think it’s a good thing for people?
I guess with everything you’ve got to look at both sides. It’s good for certain things like if you wanna share a photo or something funny you’re stoked on with your friends; but now it’s past personal and onto popularity dude. It’s a popularity contest more or less. People are looking for followers, looking for likes. What turned me off of it was seeing all my friends fully engaged in their phone. Now as the years go by you see everyone in more or less most first world societies just on their phone. I was in South America last year cruisin’ around and I didn’t see anyone on their phone. They were just out in the streets kickin’ it, more down to talk n’ shit. Now you just see people walking into poles you know what I mean? [Laughs].
On a more chilled note. Most profound mushroom experience?
Oh Fuck. Pretty much any time with a good crew, some good music and a skateboard.
Just keeping it simple right?
For sure just getting some fresh air n’ cruisin’ around. Everytime I think of mushrooms my mind just gets all spacey [laughs].
Best Madars moment?
[Laughs] There’s too many man! Anytime you hang out with Madars it’s a new story.
Give us one?
Let’s see… Ok I’ve got a good one. So you guys know about Copenhagen?
For sure
Christiania’s like this hippy commune where you’re not allowed to take photos or film. We were there right when Madars first started filming for Mad World so he was just trying to get footage of everything [laughs]. We walk into Christiania [Laughs], fuckin’ Madars just boom pulls out his go pro, sticks out his arm just straight filming into the pushers street where all the weed and hash dens are. He went in full go pro like, “Hello!” [laughs]. This dude ran up on him telling him to stop, grabbed his camera saying he’d smash it. The homies were just trying to tell him to just take the memory card and luckily he just swooped the card n’ was out. It was one of those you know? Right when he pulled out the camera I was like, “Dude what’re you doing? Put that away”. Madarse was just like, “Nah come on man that shit’s ok!” [laughs]
How’d you take the news about Billy Chusta leaving DC for Nike?
Oh Billy Chust dude! Billy Chust gone! Billy Gone! [laughs]. It was inevitable for sure.
You got a good Billy Chust moment you can share with us?
We made a good rap about him [laughs]. I don’t know it’s kinda good to have him on trips because you know at night sometimes they’re trying to light stuff up to film when we weren’t skating; so he’d just go skate and we’d just smoke joints n’ talk shit more or less. It was sick [laughs]. But a good moment? Fuck I don’t know he’s a bum [laughs]. Probably just the fact that we made a rap about him and showed him.
Was he hating on it?
Yeah for sure. It was a good time [laughs].
Who in the mafia squad rolls the biggest warhead?
Let’s see… P kid rolls a proper banger, Surrey definitely manages many a banger, JP the stee holds it down. Xavier holds it down with the hash.
You’ve got all sides pretty covered then.
Yeah for sure.
Who’s the biggest Casanova you’ve ever been on a trip with?
Billy! Casanova like thinks they’re sick, ego blasts? Wait what’s a Casanova really? [laughs]
Like who’s the player on trips? In a good way!
Oh fuck! In a good way?! Miller’s a player, Kev’s a player. We’re all players! [laughs]
Who’s the mastermind behind the ‘Wes we can’ campaign?
Pretty much the art directors over at DC wanted to do a commercial for when I was coming out with the shoe so they wanted to go with the presidential campaign candidate shit.
Were you hyped on it?
Yeah for sure! They kind of did something similar with the last shoe with the ‘yes on Wes’. Was that it or? I can’t remember [laughs].
How do you find it skating over here?
Oh its’ fuckin’ good man. There’re some rugged spots but you guys hold it down tough as fuck. You’ve got a sick park here too, the Brighton park’s dope.
You’re a fan?
Hell yeah it’s super fun man! It’s big, spacious, everyone’s hangin’ out smokin’ tree! [laughs]
For more from the DC Special Delivery Tour II, head over to www.dcshoes-uk.co.uk
Our friends at Theobalds Cap Co. have just dropped a new promo focused around team rider Jake Bidmead. Filmed and edited by Henry Edwards-Wood, we see cameo’s from team members Kyle Wilson, Jeremy Jones, Nick Stansfield and Josh Arnott, with additional clips from Joe Gavin, Joel Banner, Shaun Witherup, Tomek Lipiec, David Yap, Craig Jackson, Domas Glatkauskas, Tommy May and Josh Brown
Check the full video above and head over to theobaldscapco.co.ukto check out their two latest cap styles.
Born out of London’s Brixton Beach, Satta has grown to global recognition as a brand that produces high quality, consciously sourced and produced goods. Initially gaining attention through their unique hand crafted skate boards, made meticulously by the brands founder Joe Lauder out of his modest London based studio, the brand seamlessly made the transition in to clothing with earthy colour palettes and hand drawn designs applied to classic silhouettes. Satta’s ability to set itself apart in a highly saturated market without compromising it’s integrity is admirable, although you get a sense it’s effortless. Satta is a physical representation of a lifestyle, rather than a brand playing up to a new trend, and you can’t get much more authentic than that.
This season, the collection is largely influenced by Joe’s personal experiences on his travels to the spiritually and culturally rich island of Bali, Indonesia, where the brand has been based for the past year. Heavily graphic focused, you can find Buddhist and Hindu iconography that aligns with the brands central theme of connectedness, while the colour palette aligns with previous releases. As the concise Autumn/Winter 2016 offering begins to land in stores across the globe, we had a brief catch up with the brands founder – Joe Lauder to talk more on the brands history, his travels and future plans…
Since the birth of Satta you’ve been predominantly based in Brixton. Have your roots there influenced your vision for the brand at all?
Brixton’s quickly changing, the cross-cultural melting pot is being diluted into a gentrified mashed potato,but it’s the richness of different cultural influences alongside the place I spent most of my time in Brixton – Brixton Beach, the local skatepark which was a perfect place to see my love’s for surfing and skating mix together that played a big part in Satta’s initial influence.
As a fairly young company, what would you say has been the biggest hurdle for yourself and Satta at this point?
The hardest thing is not having any weight with the factories. I would love to be developing and innovating new fabrics to work with but I just cant because I cant meet the minimums required.
That and trying to do a teams worth of work with no team.
You’ve been to a wide variety of destinations in your travels, such as the Amazon jungle alongside Tibet and Nepal. Do you have any more adventures planned in the near future?
At the moment I’m just trying to decide where to settle next.
You’ve been skateboarding a long time and that clearly resonates within everything you do at Satta. Could you tell us a little bit about the impact skateboarding has had on your life personally, and how it’s influenced your brand?
I started skating relatively late, around 20, and I came to it after surfing, so I was always more into the roots of skating and seeing the fluidity of surfing translated into skating.
I think the main influence skateboarding has had on my life and Satta is the DIY spirit you find in so many skaters, the will to carve out and create your own (sub)culture.
With your travels in mind; where would you say your favourite place in the world to skate?
Brixton Beach
Do you still find time to work in gardening and furniture with everything going on at Satta skates?
Unfortunately not, that stopped soon after Satta was born in its current form
The appreciation of the natural world is clearly an integral part of your aesthetic at Satta. Does this approach tie in with sourcing the wood and materials you use for the boards and clothing?
For sure, we try to use locally sourcedwood as much as possible and are using hemp and organic cotton in a lot of our clothing.
Are there any new projects or collaborations from yourself and the brand coming up this year you can tell us about?
Just keeping on keeping on.
Satta’s Autumn/Winter 2016 range is available now on the brands online store and at select stockists including Goodhood
To celebrate the release Satta and WuLu teamed up to put out a special edition of the brands ‘Satta Sounds’ Mixes. The mix is available to listen to here – sattalivity.com
