Skateboard, streetwear... strange!
A few days ago we were thinking how cool it would be to walk around the office on a skateboard, when we immediately thought of calling Davide for an exchange of ideas. When you talk about skateboarding and streetwear, in Italy, you can’t not talk about him. Not only a definitely notorious guy, but also strange! Co-founder of Strange Skateboard and owner of Flame Shop, Davide Martinazzo is someone who was born on a board and hasn’t got off it since. He told us about what he has seen, what he believes in and his choice to remain a skater. A choice that fills the space that separates the concrete from the board at the moment of the flip.
Not only notorious, but also strange. Skater, showman and entrepreneur. How long have you been all this?
I have been skateboarding since ‘90 and more or less since the same time I have been involved in “skateboarding stuff”. My passion became a job, over time I became a team manager, I managed marketing for companies, I did video interviews and in the last 13 years I pushed myself into the retail world, always looking for new stimuli.
Why did you choose skateboarding?
There is no choice. I don’t know how the younger generation chooses to skateboard over other sports. I hope it’s like what happened for me: you don’t choose it, it happens to you. And you can’t do without it anymore. When I bought my first board for fun, nothing else existed for me anymore. There was skateboarding and that was it! Many people have other hobbies, for me there was just that. The feeling you get is totally unrelated to the classic sports mechanics we are used to. Here you are your own coach: determination is everything!
How did you feel when you closed your first ollie?
It was strange. It was a new feeling and I didn’t even know how I was supposed to perform it. I was with a group of guys from Treviso who were already skating and took it for granted that they knew how to ollare. After a bit of hesitation I tried it. They looked at me and said ‘it’s OK! Simple, nothing more’. It was strange, I realised that I had done it for the first time and I was already in front of an audience!
When did you found Strange Skateboards? And why is Strange Skateboards so...? Strange?
Actually, the concept of Strange was already born shortly before I arrived. There was already a brand with the first boards. Then with my arrival in 2003, Strange Skateboards got a boost. It’s called that simply because… it works! It worked and the people and elements that made it up were really bizarre: Paolo Riscica came from the hardcore scene, Nicola Favaro from the Academy of Fine Arts and Adi Castegna had German origins… Skateboarding at the time was actually a strange thing and the concept held up.
At the moment Strange is on standby. I am very focused on consulting and I am waiting for new stimuli. New ideas that can bring passion to this project.
The ‘eyes of the street’ see everything. What has the street taught you?
Practically everything. Everything I didn’t read in books I learnt on the road. If you have had the luxury of getting lost in some city, without knowing what will happen, without planning anything, you can really learn everything. I have learnt to adapt, to travel alone, I have learnt languages. For example, I can say that I learned English better on the streets than at school. I was 16 when I did my first interviews with American pros: they asked me how it was possible, I was just a kid, I didn’t even have a moustache, they said! I actually just immersed myself in that world, read and watched interviews about skateboarders and learned everything I needed to.
You have a shop specialising in streetwear. A brave choice when you opened it, which is now a widespread fashion and will be more and more so. You work exclusively with some of the most ‘street’ brands and today you can say you are an influencer in the industry. How much foresight and how much madness went into your choice?
The foresight was dictated by wanting to speak a language that was unknown to most 13 years ago. We needed to communicate Strange and it wasn’t the digital age, you couldn’t create a Facebook page and sponsor it. With a shop, some cold beers and a concert, I would show people what we were. We were among the first in Italy to make videos about an Italian skateboard team: we weren’t showing the umpteenth cool American thing, it was an all-Italian thing, finally. We were inventing our own work, even though the market was practically new at the time. After 15 years in this sector, despite the crisis caused by the web, we have a really solid brand reputation. We have been chosen by Vans, Nike and other brands for some partnerships: they rely on us for the people we are, not for the location (Castelfranco is certainly not Milan or Rome!). The microcosm we have created as Flame Shop and Strange Skateboard is interesting for them, because unlike others who stopped years ago, we still believe in it!
Jacket, tie and skateboard. In some cosmopolitan cities it is normal, here the combination is more difficult. How much do style and looks matter to you?
When you see a skater in a suit, it is because skateboarding is already an integral part of that community. For Americans, for example, it represents the new bicycle. Here it is perhaps more difficult, but I am of the opinion that a good lawyer is a good lawyer whether he skateboards or rides in a limo. In this contamination, style and look are important, but I prefer the skater as a person more than the skater look. Because the skater look many times, if it is not interpreted by a real skater, is called a poser!
Are styles changing? Where is street fashion going? What is the current trend?
We have reached the point where everything is becoming contaminated. Different styles and influences are mixing, while still pointing the finger at each other: skateboarders say that fashion is killing them, but at the same time it is skateboarding itself that was born as a style, as fashion, even in the simple act of removing logos from their clothes to make themselves pure. Now it seems that the big fashion brands are creating crazy hype around the skate world, but it doesn’t match the sales.
Aren't you afraid that the various fashion brands proposing an aesthetically similar fashion will stifle the true nature of skateboarding and possibly extinguish it?
There are pros and cons. It is like love: if it has to end, it is right that it ends. If skateboarding dies out because fashion made a famous fashion blogger wear a Thrasher sweatshirt, then it’s only fair that it should die out. But I don’t think it will. I believe that contamination will always be stronger. Conversely, if one stops skateboarding because it’s too fashionable, then one has understood nothing.
In your shop you get to know a lot of young guys who want to rock the world. What do you read in their eyes?
I no longer see what I used to see. But it is the new generation, not my customers, who are a bit adrift. Few have the fire inside. I definitely don’t want to say that ‘in my time it was better’, I love these times, I wish I was 18 now! But I often see that people who come into my shop arrive with a kind of information overload and at the same time without knowing exactly what they are looking for. I’m afraid they lack passion, enthusiasm. Not so much for skateboarding, but for life in general. Enthusiasm, my boys, is the only thing you need.
We're looking for people with the ‘Notorious attitude’. Who's next?
I have many talented friends. They range from photography, art, theatre to cinema. If you like skateboard photography and more, check out the work of Ramon Zuliani, Davide Biondani and Claudio Majorana (who is working on his new book). If you like art, you will have already heard of Nico Vascellari and his performances. For theatre, I recommend you see the performances of Silvia Costa (she will be working with Vascellari in Paris this March). Of emerging artists, I am looking at the work of Daniele Costa and Nicola Novello. They are very young and talented. Here in the North East there are talents that combine passion and business.
Alessandro Toso and Diego Santi of Avere la Barba succeeded in creating a business model out of nothing more than the need to tell stories about bearded friends. Andrea ‘Zen’ Zanata loves music and following his instincts brought 90,000 people to the Home Festival again this year. Francesco Mandelli, on the other hand, is already Notorious but I still consider him to be in the category of those who keep searching. And a beer with him makes you forget the working week in no time.
We are all ‘Researchers’. I don’t know what we will find at the end of the tunnel, but for now we keep digging.
