Though it does not happen too often in the fashion industry, sometimes a symbol of the counterculture ends up breaking barriers and finding its way into the mainstream world of pop culture. Popular personalities end up wearing the brand without having any idea of its background or what it represents. Some of the most popular examples of this in the past include the merchandise of rock bands like Black Flag and Slayer. It’s now safe to say that the skating brand Thrasher could officially be added to this short list, after a wide range of celebrities and models have been spotted wearing the clothing, including the likes of Rihanna and Justin Bieber.
The Beginning
The beginnings of the Thrasher brand would be a good place to start to understand how it has reached such great popularity in modern American fashion. The company initially began as a skating magazine in 1981. Based in San Francisco, the company was founded by Kevin Thatcher, Eric Swenson, and Fausto Vitello, as a way of trying to promote their skateboard truck company, Independent Truck Company. The goal of the Thrasher brand was to represent the thriving and rising California skate community. The contents of the magazine included a number of skateboarding and music articles, photography, interviews, and skate park reviews. In addition to their print publications, Thrasher formed a website which contained regularly updated episode segments and a forum open to online discussion from users. Thrasher’s popularity only continued to rise from here.
The Rise
In 1990, the company began one of the most respected award ceremonies in the global skateboarding community, the “Skater of the Year” award. The first award was received by legendary professional skater Tony Hawk. Thrasher also started the King of the Road competition, where groups of professional skaters were given challenges over a two week period, and had to travel around the United States to complete them. Skate Rock was the company’s first foray into the music scene, and was a compilation album featuring California punk rock bands, including bands fronted by skateboarders. Other ventures that made Thrasher even more popular during their early periods included the sponsoring of the 1999 PlayStation game ‘Thrasher Presents: Skate and Destroy’, the building of Double Rock Indoor skatepark, and the opening of the San Francisco skateshop, 66 6th Store.
Fashion also became an important part of the company from early on, as Thrasher could now not only sell merchandise to profit from, but also advertise their brand as a “walking billboard” through skaters and fans. Since skateboarding is a billion dollar industry, there were tons of opportunity. And fashion and skating were no strangers to each other either, as many famous skaters already began appearing in fashion campaigns. One such example was Dylan Rieder, who appeared in a DKNY advertisement with model and actress Cara Delevigne.
Thrasher had always been seen as a rebellious, youthful, and vintage brand. The term “thrash” was actually skateboard lingo originated in 1980s as a way to describe the process of skating. Though this rough lifestyle image and persona seems on the opposite spectrum of sophisticated modeling, wearing the brand could offer a different type of aura to top name models in the industry. The clothing could add a bit of roughness to their outfits, both complimenting and countering the overall look that models were going for.
The Explosion
For all of the aforementioned reasons, Thrasher had an upper hand in the changing fashion world. In 2016, when trends began exploring more rebellious and anti-establishment looks, the Thrasher symbol with the enflamed logo began to gain mass attention with top fashion names and celebrities. Models just couldn’t get enough of the lo-fi graphic tee look, and the best part of it was that the clothing was very cheap. One could get a Thrasher T-shirt for only $20, and a hoodie for an additional $30.
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But perhaps the greatest attention the brand received was from the celebrities and models who wore their clothing. Celebrity wear really took Thrasher’s popularity to a whole new level. Popular celebrities like Justin Bieber, Ryan Gosling, ASAP Rocky, Tyler the Creator, and even Rihanna have been seen wearing the brand. And models just couldn’t get enough of Thrasher’s casual look. Molly Blair owns a hoodie and tie dye T-shirt from Thrasher, and fellow model Sarah Brannon, known for her tomboy styles, has been known to rock the black tee with white font. In addition, Binx Walton wore the Blackout hoodie to her agency’s fete in Paris, and Cristina Hermann wore a Thrasher T-shirt at Chanel’s headquarters on 31 Rue Camdon.
Brands like Supreme and Stussy also helped to popularize the rebellious skating streetwear culture at this time. Fashion magazine Vogue became so obsessed with the trend that they started to include a “skate week” column on their website. The look grew even larger when popular brands like Vetements, a Paris based fashion brand, started adopting the Thrasher logo to be included in their exclusive collections. Other lesser known brands soon began knocking off the designs, with the assistance of cheap labor and imports from China, and through the ease of buying and selling through Ebay. H&M at one point got into a legal dispute with Thrasher, eventually being sued by the company for using it’s burning logo with the words “Tripping” instead of “Thrasher.” Other companies, like Forever 21 and R13 Denim, have also come out with similar bootleg styles as well.
The Future
This newly popularized trend has been heralded and scorned by people across the skate, fashion, and entertainment community. Some say that upscale celebrities and models don’t deserve to wear clothing designed for the rough and tough lifestyle of skaters. Others say that this is a prime way of bringing back the dying skate culture before it’s gone for good. Either way, it’s now more apparent than ever that skate fashion, and the Thrasher brand, are not going anywhere. But what will happen in the future? Will streetwear and skate fashion continue to remain the popular style? Will brands like Supreme and Thrasher eventually die down and fade into obscurity? Streetwear godfather, Virgil Abloh, previously stated streetwear is “definitely going to die”. Only time will tell what will happen to the Thrasher brand, but as of right now…it is more popular than ever.
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