Chad Muska Breaks Down the Inspiration Behind the Skytop

Supra may be done; but that doesn’t take anything way from the legacy of Chad Muska’s Skytop. It was the brand’s defining shoe, and was spotted on the feet of everyone from supermodels to rappers. Even Jay Z was photographed in a pair at the height of the shoe’s popularity in the late aughts. Muska was in London during Supra’s final international tour, and broke down the cultural blend that spawned his creation in an interview that was published by Slam City earlier today.

So at the time my ex girlfriend was in high fashion and I was going to lots of things, Paris fashion week and seeing a lot of things that were happening there. Fashion has always been a part of my life and something I always dreamed of connecting skateboarding to. Fast forward and it’s happened now, it’s there. But at that time when I was out there, there weren’t any skateboarders really in the mix you know. I saw things happening in high fashion, Dior were making some higher top shoes, Hedi Slimane was designing for Dior and that really caught my interest.

Then I was inspired outside of high fashion, at that time I was really interested in 80’s hip hop and 80’s hip hop culture. Looking back at Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Whodini and that kind of style. It was like a hybrid of Rock and Roll, Glam Rock and Hip Hop. I thought it was cool, the high tops of that time. All Rose was rocking cool looking LA Gear high tops and Melle Mel was rocking high tops and I became really interested in that idea, that time period of shoes. The idea that something could be universal, not only hip hop but rock and roll too. I wanted to make something that some hessian rock and roll dudes could rock and some hip hop dudes could rock. That was the initial concept of it and it morphed and turned into what it is.

Click here to read the entire piece.

Image Via Huck Magazine