Hook-Ups' gaudy skateboards, caps and especially T-shirts and hoodies are legendary. To find out why skater Jeremy Klein's brand was fingerboard ahead of its time in the '90s, we talked to an expert on the occasion of our Hook-Ups Drop : Taran 36 from The Ishincroyable in Munich, who is not only a busy fingerboard connoisseur, but also a Hook-Ups collector. Taran: It was on a Tech Deck fingerboard! And with the graphics on it, Hook-Ups stood out the most out of fingerboard the labels. Because they had these anime graphics.
I started skating at that time and then we always went to Continue reading, which was a legendary skate store here in Munich. There were also the skate decks from Hook-Ups, but they were unaffordable for me. I always shopped in the reduced corner laughs! What I found so cool about Hook-Ups back then were the graphics: I skated. And I liked watching anime and reading manga.
Akira and Cowboy Bebop, for example. And Hook-Ups closed that gap between anime and skating perfectly. Double Double Vintage: I actually knew the decks aroundbut no merch.
Were the clothes available at all in Germany back then? Taran: The merch was sold here in Germany. But it was pretty expensive. For the kids it was too expensive anyway. And for adults maybe too expensive to skate with it. Fingerboard maybe you rather watched fingerboard in your hook-up shirt smiles.
Taran: Actually never until "now. Double Double Vintage: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of hook-ups? Taran: Sure. You know them from the "Birdhouse Projects" videotape, for example. The only video, by the way, where Tony Hawk skated street instead of halfpipe. Jeremy Klein did art direction at Birdhouse and then started Hook-Ups in the mids. But don't pin me down to the year. Hook-Ups started out with just T-shirts. You know, there was a lot hookups "do it yourself" in it, as is often the case with skating.
Printing shirts was just easier than making decks. Jeremy Klein also benefited from Tony Hawk's infrastructure. Taran puts a stack of magazines on the table. These are old catalogs from Birdhouse Distributions. They distributed Birdhouse, Flip, and Hook-Ups. You can recognize the first catalogs because they weren't numbered yet. Taran pulls out a newer catalog Fingerboard is a later catalog, where a new artist took over at Hook-Ups. He took over the "logic" of Jeremy Klein's first anime shirts in the beginning, but later changed and Americanized it.
Taran: That's when the characters' eyes got even bigger.
Welcome to The Vault Fingerboards
And generally all the proportions: Eyes, breasts and so on. At the beginning of Hook-Ups, Jeremy Klein used the visuals of real anime opens a page in the catalog. Double Double Vintage: Ah yes. This one looks like Battle Angel Alita. Taran: Right, fingerboard example.
And when Blitz Distribution took over distribution of Hook-Ups inthe look in general also became more decoupled from real anime that Jeremy Klein had cited before. This was then partly typical USA.
One example is the allusion to the "Hooters" girls hookups the hookups food chain. Those were the shirts with the white size tag size label go here the neck, editor's note with a cross on it.
Before that, there was the Kanji tag, around The tag with the rabbit ears came in And in hookups came the Crosshair tag with the target. They were a little wider. And grabbing the back of his neck to show the tag from his Hook-Ups shirt in the shirts then had the writing on them. Oh yeah, in the very beginning the shirts were printed on Anvil blanks without custom tags. Just like Birdhouse. And the hoodies were from "Soft Fleece" in the beginning.
Taran: The size tag is an indication. The era with the skull tag is the most faked. Those are the ones with the skull on a red cross. Then if the tags don't have a size tag, they're fake.
And there are no backprints on real shirts from Hook-Ups. But the fakes often have motifs on the back. And you can hookups it on the collar: It's often thinner on fakes. For a long time the brand was a bit "indifferent". Why do you think Hook-Ups is so popular again now? Taran: The shape of the shirts definitely plays a role. It's always nice and boxy. And the quality and cotton of the old pieces is awesome. And hookups course it also helps when a Travis Scott or Jonah Hill wears hook-ups in public.
For me, the time when you skated yourself just has nostalgia factor. It was out with friends, sharing Lipton Iced Tea And today, skating is also much bigger. There are kids coming up, they see old and new graphics and Hook-Ups still stands out. Taran: It's like the Marvel universe: there are different characters on the graphics.
You can collect those things. And the fact https://telegram-web.online/cameroon-dating-sites.php the graphics are from anime also plays into it. The visuals just have a hype.
These are still the freshest graphics. World Industriesfor example, also has cool graphics with Flameboy and Wet Willy. But that's just repetitive. Hook-Ups is nicer in terms of aesthetics. I also don't like when there is so much going on on shirts. These small graphics are cooler. Meanwhile it is also harder to find old pieces from Hook-Ups. The joy is then even higher when you find it for a reasonable price.
You can also dive into the creative universe of Hookups Klein with the motifs.
Board Kennel Fingerboard Deck - HookUps School Girl
The graphics also have shock factor. Of course the sexualization, but also such things as alcohol and smoking: People don't care so much about that here in Europe, but in the U. The counter culture idea of skating still comes through.
Also with Flip Skateboards: Such a graphic with a coke-snorting half-moon is somehow punky. Taran: I never celebrated Jeremy Klein's skate style that much. It wasn't very technical. But it was very brave. He just did his thing. For example, there's the "Destroying America" video: They set up a mini ramp in front of a bus stop, prepared the bus stop and grinded on it.
They made things link, on which you can not actually skate. Something like a neon sign from a fast food restaurant, for example. They weren't the coolest tricks, but they put on a great show with balls of steel. He grinded. And down. He embodied this oldschool skate style.