![]() What inspired you to start Mankind? What did you think was missing in the streetwear culture? Lets just say people were ignorant in their attitudes towards skateboarding and skateboarders in the 80’s… Skate culture is every where you look today… So many people nowadays are able to do their thing… So I would say that the skate culture today is good… In the past you were the outcast and the weirdo… You were never really socially accepted in the 80’s by the masses… The masses were lame anyways. What do you think about skate culture today and how is it different from when you were growing up? ![]() ![]() How long have you been working in the clothing industry? I started skating in 1975, I was 5 years old. Watching Yellowman, Eek-a-Mouse and others while swilling on Red Stripes with fellow skateboarder and surfer teenagers…skateboarding - building quarter pipe with my older brothers and further building a vert ramp in the woods by our house as a teenager…the endless missions, searching for spots to skate….discovering backyard pools…art - street style was something I lived and breathed and still do to this day…this was the beginning of Street Style and I was right there in the mix since the get go…back then there were was a real small crowd of individuals who were at the forefront of Street Style and they were the pioneers of its very essence.making my first skateboard stickers in 1984 and selling them at school….then first screen t-shirts a few years later…creating my first clothing line in 1989 with HOMEGROWN.then MANKIND.then MIKE23. That would be the 80’s -from about 82-89 to be exact, this time in history was special for music, skateboarding and art.it was the music - (hip-hop, reggae,punk rock & hardcore) going to shows and seeing friends in bands and underage drinking at spots like NEGRIL COVE -Reggae Club. What is the inspiration behind Duct Tape Years? Noah is proud to offer a platform for a capsule collection of t-shirts to be offered to the public. It was during Scott and Brendon’s time together in the resurging 90’s New York skate scene that the idea for The Duct Tape Years was born. Money was not flowing, so the day you blew a hole in your shoe or ripped a pair of knee pads, you had recourse to one thing: duct tape. Visiting a new city meant finding skaters and asking to crash. Kids made t-shirts and stickers with one-color graphics because it was cheaper. Contests and concerts were held at people’s houses. The Duct Tape Years is Scott’s tribute to those times of struggle and dedication in skateboarding, and the camaraderie and authenticity they bred. Everyone had to do their part to keep the sport alive, and the more looked-down-upon they were, the better. Skate and Destroy wasn’t just a slogan, it was a command skaters took to heart. Kids would come from miles around to skate Scott’s ramp, which led to him traveling to skate theirs, as well as finding out about spots, bands, and the fervent, DIY skate community exemplified by the tone of Thrasher Magazine in those years. With skateparks closing in rapid succession and popular culture moving on to other fads, skateboarding was pushed into a backyard underground. ![]() Scott grew up skateboarding in Orlando, and had his own vert ramp from from 1983 to 1993, which became his passport to the skate scene in central Florida during a special time in the sport’s history. Scott has since become the Senior Designer of Apparel at BRANDBLACK, but his studio is full of artifacts from his long career. This sudden global visibility brought corporate scrutiny to what would have formerly been a niche market of savvy skaters, and threats of litigation from both Nike and New Era effectively shut down his operation. Scott went on to launch a second iconic brand, MIKE, at New York sneakerhead haven Clientele in 2006, which rocketed to worldwide fame via the explosion of interest in streetwear facilitated by an evolving Internet. In 1994, MANKIND became the first streetwear label to make an entire collection in Italy, presaging the contemporary elevation of the genre by twenty or so years. The two first met in Miami in 1990, via their involvement with Pervert and Don Busweiler’s clothing store, Animal Farm, and eventually worked together (along with Acapulco Gold’s Geoff Heath) on Scott’s brand, MANKIND. Scott Nelson is a longtime friend of Brendon’s and an originator in the skatewear/streetwear scene. ![]()
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