Gravis has produced a nice short clip to introduce their Filter shoe silhouette. Team riders Dylan Rieder and Sammy Winter skate through the streets of Tokyo in the new Filter.

Check out the video here below.

Music by The Cosmonauts – “Psychic Denim”
Video by RussellHoughten.com

We get to see part of the new Daisuke Takahashi ‘Subspecies’ film. There is some really impressive freestyle street skating in this two minute clip, something you just have to check out!

HUF partners up with Tokyo-based artist Haroshi and Bay Area skateboard distributor DLX on a limited edition collaboration, available January 2012. Shot at artist Haroshi’s studio in Tokyo by Shinto God, cut by Martin Reigel.

Designing skate shoes is difficult. Difficult because the features most needed in a skateboarding shoe directly contradict one another. For example cushioning and board feel: Skateboarders need cushioning to protect their feet from impact, but they also need a thin midsole to feel the board beneath them. Another paradox — durability and breathability: Thicker materials help prevent a skateboarding shoe from blowing out at the seams, but more layers mean less breathability. And then there’s the delicate balancing of tradition and progression in shoe design, between respecting skateboarding’s heritage and blazing the future with advancements of technology and materials.

Nike became the leader in designing for sport by accepting challenges like these. A decade ago, Nike signed its first skateboarding athletes and launched Nike SB, a line of skateboarding shoes that would draw from a wealth of athletic shoe innovation, 40 years in the making.

With the video below, on the example of Paul Rodriguez, Nike shows the innovation that has happened over the last years and their inspirations from other footwear innovation, outside of Nike SB.

While going through the most recent issue of Fricote Magazine, we stumbled across the work of artist Arthur King. In his latest work, I Want To Skate, he presents a series of installations making skating democratic. From the sandwich to apples to books and t-shirts – everbody and everything is allowed to skate.

Check out the entire series after the jump.

For Holiday 2011 UK fashion designer Paul Smith has teamed up with Alien Workshop. Together they present a classic deck with black/white designs on both sides, double branding and most interesting, the classic Paul Smith multicolor stripe design applied to the different layers of the deck.

You can purchase the deck, which is limited to 200 pieces, here.

Introducing Globe’s latest addition to its cruiser board line up – the Bantam. These may look like the boards of yesteryear, but they definitely are not. With a 30-day guarantee on the board and a lifetime guarantee on the trucks, the Globe Bantam Cruiser is not a toy. The board is stiffer, the trucks are wider and the components last longer than anything in the market.

The brand has produced a recreated fun vintage looking pool skate session for the commercial of the Globe Bantam. (Via Radcollector)

Check it out!

This week The Guardian published an interesting article on the rise of skateboard brands and clothing to a multimillion dollar business – The Fall and Rise of Skate Chic. They talk about Supreme’s London store opening, Ed Banger Records and Busy P, Jason Dill, Odd Future’s Tyler The Creator and many other topics that we often speak about here. Furthermore they also speak about the sale of Volcom to PPR, the parent company of Gucci and YSL.

In the article they interview Keith Hufnagel of Huf and other tastemakers, designers from the industry. Certainly an interesting read and mainstream take on the trends in our market.

“When Supreme opened its London store this September, the young and well-heeled spilled on to the streets of Soho from a launch party many had queued for hours to get into. Inside, Ed Banger Records label owner and Parisian DJ Busy P rubbed shoulders with legendary skaters such as Jason Dill. This was more than good PR for the New York-based skater brand, recently worn in prolificacy by Odd Future’s Tyler the Creator. This was an event that marked a remarkable change in fortunes for a fashion once largely dismissed as the style concerns of waster teenagers.

Supreme started life in the mid-90s, when New York skating was at an all-time low. Companies were going out of business, skaters couldn’t afford to live off their sponsorship and the sport had developed a reputation for being popular among a nuisance generation of slacker kids. The idea that, a decade down the line, skater fashion would not only occupy a burgeoning corner of the market but also infiltrate high fashion must have seemed absurd. But that is what’s happened.

This spring PPR, the parent company of Gucci and Alexander McQueen, bought the Californian skate company Volcom in a deal worth $607m. The leap in Volcom’s stock to $24.39 from $19.73 when the deal was announced in May even prompted some law firms to take a closer look at it because they claimed shareholders weren’t getting a fair price.”

Read the full article here.

This weekend Odd Future will release OFWGKTA and Golf Wang skateboard decks. Overall there will be two designs in three different colors, produced in limited quantities. They will release the decks at their 1 month pop-up store on December 3rd, 2011.

Golf Wang Pop-Up Store
410 N. Fairfax
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Palace Skateboards has released the full length VHS powered film, Tres Trill, this week. Some good old school looking skate action can be found in this 6 minute short film. Check it out!