Skate Fashion x Innovation.
Skateboarding x Fashion?!? WTF?
Maybe you've noticed it too? Traditional skate labels like Vans, Supreme, Vision Street Wear, and more, are showing up in fashion magazines from Vogue to Seventeen to Nylon. You see candid shots in the NY Times and via online sites of models running from show to show during fashion week in NYC, Paris & London - many of them embracing the skater look.
I had a chance to speak about this very subject at The Smithsonian National Museum of American History's Innoskate event this summer - and my take is this; what we as skaters have known forever, is now being discovered by the fashion crowd. Just like punk rock, geek chic, & surfing. Those looks too have been taken into the fashion world and been embraced on many levels.
So what does this mean? Should we be pissed or flattered? Is it bad that our look & core brands are being embraced in this way? Or, is it cool to be have the look that the world is watching and trying to emulate?
I'm thinking it's pretty damn flattering. We as a group have always been innovators, we create looks that are iconic, we wear these labels not to just be fashionable, but to also support various brands we skate for or because we happen to love them. It's who we are. Now others are wanting to look like us.
Crazy huh?