How Skateboarding Took Over Paris Fashion Week
Atiba Jefferson
Skateboarding and fashion is a love story for the ages—a mostly one-sided one. Fashion’s desire for authenticity, for gritty realness and youthful abandon, has made skateboarding a wellspring of inspiration for designers. Skaters, meanwhile, like to feign an indifference to fashion. But they are meticulous and opinionated, willing to take risks. And they are intensely aware of what they’re wearing—mostly because it affects how they skate and how they look in photos and videos. Skaters, like designers, are image makers.
In the last few years we’ve seen the precarious marriage between skateboarding and luxury fashion advance to spectacular heights. Virgil Abloh made skateboarding an essential pillar for Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection—and now that line is in the hands of a man known as Skateboard P, who invited several skaters to mingle with the celebrities and editors at his latest runway extravaganza in Paris last week. At the Wales Bonner show, New York skate phenomenon Tyshawn Jones sat front row next to fellow Adidas skater Na-kel Smith. Even the venerable skate blog Quartersnacks asked the question: “Why is every skater on Earth in Paris?” Skaters have become fixtures at—and in—the shows, but this season felt like an apex moment for the fashion and skateboarding crossover multiverse.
Of all the skate events going on during Paris Fashion Week—and there were many—Vans went biggest and hardest with a weeklong “Paris takeover,” which culminated in a rager at the summit of Montmartre with performances by Kaytranada, Venus X, and a headlining DJ set by Justice. Downhill from the stage, Vans installed a skate bowl for its team to shred, while a crowd packed with fashion heavy-hitters like Jonathan Anderson, Paloma Elsesser, Fai Khadra, Haider Ackermann, Moses Sumney, Sarah Andelman, and many others flooded the grounds of the historic Sacré-Coeur Basilica.
Over in the Marais, the iconic footwear brand also mounted a photo exhibit featuring 25 years of work by the legendary skate shooter Atiba Jefferson. Across the more than 200 photos on display, Atiba’s lens captured the history and evolution of modern street skating, tracking the progression of both tricks—they get gnarlier—and style.
As we walked through the exhibit together, Jefferson pointed out what he calls his best skate photo ever: Tyshawn Jones kickflipping over the subway gap. “It's just perfect,” he said of the image, which instantly went viral and covered Thrasher magazine. “The lighting's perfect. The timing is perfect. The composition's perfect. I didn't have anything to complain about. ” Except, he notes, for the gash he got on his hand scrambling to climb out of the subway track before a train arrived. Later, Jones gifted Jefferson a Rolex wrapped in the sweatshirt he’s wearing in the photo.
In another room, I spotted a behind-the-scenes photo from a Nike commercial shoot: Eric Koston, looking slightly battered, walking up a set of stairs with Kobe Bryant smiling behind him. Jefferson first got to know Bryant while serving as an assistant to the Lakers’ staff photographer. “Kobe always loved skateboarding,” Jefferson said. “I think any athlete just appreciates how risky it is physically on your body, how dangerous that is.”
Touring the gallery with Jefferson, we both noted how the history of style in skating is really the history of modern fashion. What starts with skaters, on the fringe, always ends up being accepted widely by the masses.
“Skateboarding will always be at the front of fashion and culture in the streets,” Jefferson said. “And that's where creativity thrives, in streets, in cities, skateboarding's in the gutter. That's the beauty of skateboarding. It's about creativity, about being different, about being an individual. For fashion, that's always going to be appealing.”
Jefferson spent Paris Fashion Week the way he spends most of his time—in the streets with his camera and his friends. Skateboarding, he said, “makes you just look at the world from a different perspective.” Here, in an exclusive photo diary he put together for GQ, he shares a glimpse of that perspective.
Originally Appeared on GQ
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