INTERVIEWS

Noah Johnson Peels Back Palace’s Layers in GQ Profile

Published

1 year ago

August 19, 2021

Skate Newswire

We’re still fascinated by Palace. It’s the only brand outside of Supreme to truly transcend skateboarding into the world of mainstream fashion. The fact that its namesake was a London flophouse remains one of our favorite aspects of its story considering the exclusivity of its high-profile collaborations with Ralph Lauren, Mercedes Benz, etc. And Lev has consistently made us laugh year after year since The PWBC Weekly News days. Noah Johnson does a fantastic job of putting it all into perspective with his latest profile for GQ.

And there’s a twinkle in his eye as he recalls the Ralph Lauren collaboration. That pairing had followed other successful partnerships—with Umbro, on a reproduction of an old English football shirt, and with Reebok, on a couple of pairs of trainers—and together those projects spoke to the very essence of Palace’s identity: that they could be more than just a skate brand, and that a skate brand could be about more than just skating. Skaters in New York had taken cues from hip-hop and basketball culture and flipped them to make something of their own, and Tanju was bringing the worlds of English house music and football into skateboarding. In doing so, he created a skate brand that could act as a platform for his biggest dreams and a world of new opportunities for the skaters who mattered most to him. “There was nothing that Lev was interested in that he thought Palace couldn’t be,” says Fergus Purcell, his longtime graphic designer. “He had the instinct that other people could relate to. And he almost had a fuck-you attitude to the skate industry as it stood, because it actually closed lots of doors in a kind of bullshit way.”

Read the entire piece here.

Image Via GQ

INTERVIEWS

Kelly Bird Opens Up in Latest The Nine Club Episode

Published

3 weeks ago

December 28, 2022

Skate Newswire

Nike SB Global Brand Manager Kelly Bird opens up about growing up in Houston, getting into skateboarding, becoming a pro, and eventually transitioning to the industry side of skateboarding.

Before he became the global brand manager of Nike SB, Kelly worked for DC Shoes and Lakai Footwear.

INTERVIEWS

Catch Up with Mariah Duran in the Latest Nine Club Episode

Published

1 month ago

December 20, 2022

Skate Newswire

Pro skater Mariah Duran has always been into sports as a young kid, she revealed in the latest episode of The Nine Club.

The goofy-footed skater from Albuquerque, New Mexico got introduced to skateboarding when she was around 10. Initially, she would borrow his brother’s board, but her mom eventually bought her a board.

She was also into softball when she was younger and basketball when she was in high school. Later on, she shifted her focus to skateboarding.

Mariah won the USA Skateboarding National Championships Womens Street in 2019, and 2021. She placed 4th in the most recent competition.

She is also a two-time X Games gold medalist for Women’s Street Skateboarding.

INTERVIEWS

Nyjah Huston Talks About SOTY 2022

Published

1 month ago

December 13, 2022

Skate Newswire

Nyjah Huston has only good things to say about his rivals for the 2022 SOTY.

In the ONSTIX Episode 108 streamed on Thrasher’s Twitch channel, Nyjah described the 2022 SOTY Tyshawn Jones as the “King of Pops” for “skating over anything and everything possible.”

He also said that Louie Lopez is just straight-up creative and had a good chance of getting SOTY for many years now.

He also commended TFunk’s latest video part.

Nyjah said in the interview that he watches almost every video that Thrasher posts, even those names he hadn’t heard of.

I love watching everyone’s skating because everyone skates differently and that’s what beautiful about what we do.
Nyjah huston

Tyshawn Jones eventually got the 2022 SOTY title. He is one of the three double-recipients of the title, the other two being Danny Way and Chris Cole. He earned his first SOTY in 2018.

Watch the full interview here.