Color 7.4 Editor's Letter Buy This Issue Now

It’s not hereditary, we know this much. And there’s no real proof it’s a characteristic of a troubled family upbringing. One thing for certain though is that a great deal of boys and girls find out around a certain age that they are different. For me this was in the early 90s. I didn’t make the basketball team (or didn’t even want to). School was hard for me, so I didn’t like it too much. The keeners bored me and the jocks and skids annoyed me. A typical ‘misunderstood teenager’?

No, typical would be to strap on some boots, get a face full of piercings, dye your hair and pin a patch to your army jacket. It’s getting a sweet tribal tattoo and working on your tan between visits to the gym.

There’s one particular era that will forever define and sour the distinctive aesthetic of a skater: the early 90s. Enormous pants, distinctive shoes, oversized shirts with cartoons on them, flat brimmed hats, toques in the summer. It borrowed from Mexican gang members, but was a style all its own. It wasn’t punk or banger, and it was the antithesis of jock. The fashion sensibilities were anything but chic. The grossly oversized clothing said “we don’t fit in” in the most literal way. It united a secret society and introduced a new way to express, through protest, how a generation of skaters felt about their place in society.

As skateboarding gained in popularity, we let down our guard and let in our seams. Nowadays, some prefer it baggy like Grant