Why are skaters the most requested models of the last few years? From Blondey McCoy to Evan Mock, skaters have taken over brands and catwalks
The fact that the skateboarding world, its mentality and its aesthetic have always fascinated the fashion industry isn't something new. Over the years and with the evolution of styles and customs, skaters have gone from outsiders - often by their own wish - to faces of a new fashion generation. Underground has become mainstream, against the desires of the most OG skaters, who shy away from the spotlight. In the never-ending war between fashion and skate subculture, it has remained famous the controversy sparked by Jake Phelps, the late Thrasher Magazine editor in chief, who called out Justin Bieber and Rihanna for wearing Thrasher T-shirts, calling them 'fucking clowns'. The issue of the appropriation of a culture that is indeed not part of the fashion industry is bound to remain open, but it's also true that skate and fashion have always walked on very close paths, which have often intertwined.
The pioneer of this evolution was Dylan Rieder, the late American skater who in 2014 starred in a DKNY ad along with Cara Delevigne and Jourdan Dunn, and who was later the protagonist of a Vogue spread wearing Alexander Wang. Rieder's example had long remained isolated but it definitely started a trend, which would later be boosted by the success and the popularity of brands such as Supreme New York and Palace Skateboards, on the opposite coasts of the Atlantic Ocean.
Besides being actually good on the deck, the defining trait of Mock's personality, as it is for many other skaters, is his fluidity: they can't be enclosed in just one definition, framing them in established borders and stereotypes. Mock declared that he feels like an octopus that with all its tentacles is trying to reach for different areas and interests, from fashion to music, from skate to cinema, without rules nor limits. The same goes with the aforementioned skaters: Blondey is a contemporary artist, designer, and founder of the brand THAMESMMXX; Sage Elsesser is a rapper and musician, Na-Kel Smith is a rapper and actor. Being a skater is just a part of their personality, definitely important and representative, but not totalizing.
According to Clarke's words, fashion and skateboarding are one entity, impossible to separate. Since Dior Homme creative director of the time, Kris Van Assche, made his models walk on a setting that reminded of a lighted skate park (Fall 2016), the skateboarding world has met unprecedented popularity in the fashion world, a rather active transformation. The most prominent representatives of the skate scene turned into the translators and intermediaries of two languages that are not that distant.
