CPHFW’s most unexpected event, Artificial, transformed a fashion hub into a surreal skate park by creative workshop Niko June. Conceived by Silas Adler and Tom Botwid, the mash-up saw skaters pulling “tricks for cash” on unorthodox art obstacles
A massive fried egg, a half-eaten pear, a twisted metal tulip reminiscent of a Jeff Koons sculpture. No, it’s not an art exhibition or the set design for a runway show (Henrik Vibskov, perhaps) but a conceptual skate park and the site of Artificial, Copenhagen Fashion Week’s most unexpectedly delightful happening. Conceived by Silas Adler (previously the creative director of Soulland) and Tom Botwid (of skate brand Poetic Collective), the event, which took place yesterday evening at The Lab, was a mash-up of art, fashion and skateboarding, centred around that aforementioned skate park, designed by creative workshop Niko June.
Having met through the skate community, Adler and Botwid previously collaborated on a Soulland and Poetic Collective capsule collection and even discussed forming their own Soulland skate team. This project, ultimately, is more loose in form, blending subcultures to create something new. “We don’t really need to define where genres live,” says Adler. “We wanted to bring skateboarding into a new space and introduce it to people who are not normally introduced to it. And doing it in a way where you can come as a non-skater and have a good experience.”
As Botwid notes, Copenhagen is ripe for this sort of world-merging, given that these genres already “co-exist” within the city. It’s also a place with a rich skateboarding culture, despite the obvious obstacle: the winter. “Copenhagen is really good for street skating, and that’s always attracted a lot of people to the city for skating,” adds Botwid. “Even if the weather is what it is.”
Realised in collaboration with New Balance – who brought along their European skate team for the occasion – the event found skaters doing “tricks for cash” on the unorthodox obstacles. Over a set period of time, contestants attempt the best possible trick on, say, the stem-cum-rail of that aforementioned tulip, receiving cash on the spot for a job well done.
In building the park itself, Niko June was given free hands to let their creativity run wild. “They challenged us by bringing crazy references,” says Botwid. “What they’ve built is something that has not been done in skating.” The yolk of that aforementioned egg, for instance, is a yellow bouncing yoga ball. Elsewhere, there’s an obstacle made of faux fur. “It was fun seeing the ramp-building team that we’re working with being like, ‘What the f*** is this?’,” says Adler.
For Adler and Botwid, The Lab was the perfect place to host the event, and not just because the industrial building had a 600 square metre industrial space available. The site of runway shows and photo shoots, it’s become Copenhagen’s unofficial fashion hub. For the fashion folk in attendance, seeing this familiar setting reimagined as a skate park was quite novel. “It was important for us to do it in a location where there hasn’t been skateboarding before,” says Adler.
It’s hardly the first time fashion and skateboarding have come together (Supreme, I’m looking at you), but while most skate-meets-fashion outings focus on the clothes, Artificial led with skating, giving attendees a true experience. “We’re not selling a collection,” says Adler, who has plenty of experience selling a collection during CPHFW. “Our mission is to make you smile next to someone from a different world. And you’re looking at some guy jumping on a three-metre fried egg.”