As the skate legend and Nike SB collaborate with Soulland on a capsule collection, we exclusively premiere a film that captures the freedom of the city
Even though the saying goes you should never meet your heroes, Silas Adler, co-founder of Danish skate/fashion label Soulland, flipped that on its head when the opportunity came about to collaborate with pro skater/legend/his own childhood hero, Eric Koston – “I was looking for the hidden camera,” he jokes when asked what his first reaction was.
Between them – and an extremely long Whatsapp group chat – Adler, Koston, Soulland and Nike SB have designed a capsule collection (available here), released last Friday during Copenhagen Fashion Week and the city’s annual skate competition, Copenhagen Open. Consisting of seven pieces of clothing as well as three footwear designs, the collection mixes Koston’s skate functionality with Adler’s Scandinavian style.
“I didn’t wanna do something that wasn’t true to skate culture” – Silas Adler
"For people that don’t know me, I’m more interested in skateboarding than I am in fashion. I need to be in fashion because that’s my job but skateboarding is my number one interest,” said Adler at the capsule launch, who was initially worried about mixing the two worlds. He continued, “having one foot in skateboarding and one foot in fashion, everyone involved took a risk. We’re trying to merge those two worlds. I never did it with Soulland because it’s (skateboarding) so precious to me…. I didn’t wanna fuck it up and I didn’t wanna do something that wasn’t true to skate culture.”
For Koston, the collaboration felt natural. He has been visiting the city for around 14 years and has also long been involved in designing, particularly with Nike SB. He also explained that he believed the fashion element has always been inherent in skateboarding. “I feel like even the skateboarder who portrays this image to not care about how he looks, in a way that’s him caring about how he looks – even if you wanna be dirty in your ripped up Dickies and only wear a flannel.”
“I feel like even the skateboarder who portrays this image to not care about how he looks, in a way that’s him caring about how he looks” – Eric Koston
Taking inspiration from the freedom felt amongst skate culture, they dubbed the capsule FRI.day – “fri” translating to “free” in Danish. Adler nods to this freedom that particularly runs within the city’s veins – Copenhagen’s canals. “One of the most beautiful things for Copenhagen youth culture is how, after a night out, or after a skate session, you just go in and jump in the water. That’s a very me thing and all skateboarders in Copenhagen.” He adds that even those not living in Copenhagen should be able to garner a sense of the freedom he’s referring to, adding that it is also a word play, “the day Friday and the feeling of Friday, so ‘freedom day’.”
With the capsule now on sale, after a huge launch party in Copenhagen this past week, we exclusively premiere a film and series of stills made for the release, filmed in Copenhagen with skaters from both the Soulland and Nike SB team.
Soulland meets Eric Koston for Nike SB’s FRI.day is available to buy here
Directed by Silas Adler & Simon Weyhe, featuring Eric Koston, Hjalte Halberg, Karsten Kleppan, Hugo Boserup, Ville Wester and Oskar Rozenberg. Full credits here