During the lockdown. the closure of non essential shops has meant that I haven’t been able to go into charity shops and have a look for interesting items. Instead, I have been doing some personal online shopping on depop and ebay of second hand items which I have used some as my inspiration. One of the items I wanted to research is a ‘Bitch Skateboards’ fleece. The thing I found interesting about this fleece first off, was the real lack of information of the brand. When searching for other similar items, it’s clear that pieces from this brand are quite hard to come by. There has been several articles written on the subject of the mystery of the brand ‘Bitch Skateboards’, but after looking at a Reddit survey I was recommended to watch a documentary called ‘The Man Who Souled the World’.

This documentary from 2007,  followed the story of Steve Rocco, an American freestyle skater in the 80s.  Rocco speaks on the documentary and explains that at the time, skating was a very commercialised sport- but the main skating brands back then were very corporate and ran by people that had never really skated themselves. Rocco himself was dropped by one of the skate labels after he was seen as being past his skating prime. It’s at this point that Rocco began to make and sell his own boards. Shortly after this, he ran out of money and asked to team up with Rodney Mullen- another famous freestyle skater. This is where World Industries was born. From this point the two began to design and sell skate boards decks, the company grew when World industries began recruiting skaters to become the faces of the brand- the skaters they recruited were a mixture of pro and semi pro- which at the time was unheard of.  The faces/ ambassadors of World industries would relay their ideas for designs of skate decks and the two artists, and these designs would be bought to life. World Industries was known for being very controversial and sarcastic. Their marketing style appealed much more to a teen skating audience, as it spoke in a tone that was more relaxed and friendly- unlike the big corporations that came before World industries.

As it grew, World Industries transformed skating completely. The money that skating generated stayed very much within the community- with skaters earning a lot more money that they had before- a more ‘communist’ type model. Several controversial ads, some that magazines refused to print allowed World Industries to start their own magazine called Big Brother, and with time several sub-brands were born. These included, Blind and Plan B both very successful brands.  In short, things with the company stopped running so smoothly and bad financial management meant many skaters weren’t getting paid. This lead to two of the faces of world industries, Mike Carroll and Spike Jonze, leaving to start their own company- Girl Skateboards. It’s at this point that Steve Rocco created ‘Bitch Skateboards’ to mock Girl.

Bitch was only in operation for a short time- which is why there is a lack of available garments from this brand today. The one thing I’ve taken from watching this documentary is just how incredible the deck art was. The creativity of the deck designs were absolutely crazy, and really anything goes. Anything can look cool on a skateboard deck, and their a good way of advertising. From this I had the idea to create my own series pf skateboard deck designs that promote sustainability second hand shopping, recycling etc. Throughout this project I have found it difficult to pin down the market I want to aim at- so I think aiming at skaters is perfect, particularly when the ‘skater style’ is still very much copied outside the sport itself. I also think that using the boards to promote sustainable ideals, will trickle over to others- as skating is still seen as being cool. This way I can be very experimental and I am designing for a purpose. I still very much want to include the idea I previously had of paying ‘homage’ to different items but in a different way. This also gives me the opportunity to experiment and draw/create with a loose theme rathe than something very specific.

The fleece;