This article originally appeared in 'Hypebeast Magazine Issue 33: The Systems Issue.'
If you were trying to explain skateboarding to aliens, showing then a GX1000 video would be a good place to start. A lot of skateboarding today is highly technical: In an average video, skaters will string two, three, sometimes four tricks together into a Voltron-esque line that is inscrutable to anyone not steeped in skateboarding knowledge. Watching a GX1000 video, on the other hand, is a visceral experience, immediately understandable by anyone who can grasp the basic concepts of momentum and risk.
Based in San Francisco, GX1000’s rotating cast of skaters bomb their city’s hills in roving packs, screaming and hooting after one of them grinds a ledge into a descent that makes your palms sweat just watching it from the couch. They are skateboarding’s id, representing every skater’s most base desire to grind stuff and haul ass. Their tricks are sometimes blunt and foundational, a 50-50 grind on a chunky ledge, or a wallie over a planter. Often, the meat of the line comes immediately after, when they ride off into the sunset down a hill so steep it looks like it could melt the urethane wheels off a skateboard.
GX1000 was informally founded around 2008, when Ryan Garshell started making videos for Slap Magazine’s website. At the time, the site’s editor wanted a regular video series with an underlying theme. Garshell was still shooting with a camera called the VX1000—a once-ubiquitous model within skating known for grainy footage often shot with a fisheye lens—while the rest of the industry was moving on to fancier HD cameras. His last name, combined with the camera he used, provided the title for the video series that would one day become a full-on skate and clothing brand with four seasonal collections per year.
But GX1000 might have stayed just a video series if it weren’t for Garshell’s longtime friend Stephen McClintock. While working at a bar in New York, McClintock reached out to Garshell and suggested he make some product to accompany the increasingly popular videos. “He was like, ‘Don't you want to do cool stuff, go on trips with your friends, and be able to give them free stuff?’” Garshell remembers. They started with simple t-shirts around 2014, eventually moving on to more ambitious products like screen-printed jackets embellished with patches, plus collaborations with artists like Dave Schubert, Michael St. John, Petra Cortright, Peter Sutherland, and others.
Today, Stephen still handles the design and production process, while Ryan oversees the skateboarding and video side of the business, but both embrace a communal approach, asking the other skaters in the crew for input on creative decisions. This strategy has led to a cohesive visual identity across their clothes, skateboards, and videos. The products they release feel distinctly a part of who they are as a group of friends. And while Stephen recently relocated to Ohio, the core crew got together in San Francisco for a photoshoot and Zoom call where they weighed in on the connection between skateboarding and fashion, the city’s tech scene, and their approach to creating videos that make viewers feel like they’re sharing a 12-pack at the session.
Stephen, I know you do most of the clothing design yourself. Do you have a background in fashion or are you self-taught?
Stephen McClintock: I’m pretty self-taught. When I left San Francisco and went to New York, that's kind of where I learned graphic design and had friends who taught me. I feel like I kind of did it in a smart way, just doing tees and printables before evolving into cut-and-sew stuff. And then just learning how to communicate better and email, too. I'm not just like, “Yo, what up?” It's a learning curve.
You had to learn how to be more professional.
Stephen McClintock: Yeah, I feel like I'm better at communicating and handling situations now. Just figuring out after making a graphic, like, “Oh, this should have been vectorized and screen printed, or this one should be a CMYK print, or damn, I should have made these pants a quarter-inch wider.” I'll wake up in the middle of the night and think about f*cking pocket sizes and stuff like that.
Is there a particular type of GX1000 clothing that you think you’ve really nailed?
Stephen McClintock: It comes in waves, but I would say pants. I'm always kind of tweaked on pants. The hoodies, too. I think our cut-and-sew hoodies are the best f*cking fitting hoodies. And the price point… we should charge a lot more money than what we sell those for.
Skateboarding has always affected broader fashion trends to a certain extent, but it has recently reached new, sometimes surreal levels with JW Anderson’s skateboard sweater and Celine making their own $1,000 skateboard. As the owners of a skate clothing brand, do you have thoughts on how skating influences fashion?
Ryan Garshell: I think it's a hybrid of multiple things. Skateboarding is such a subculture, and any subculture that's true to its roots is hard to enter and gain acceptance to. I think a large part of fashion is about people wanting to gain acceptance from those who it's hardest to get that from.
Stephen McClintock: Skating wasn’t cool when we started doing it. It was so different, just hanging out in the back of parking lots. So it's cool to see kids now being in Louis Vuitton stuff … dude, that’s f*cking sick.
Ryan Garshell: Now it's cool to be the dirty dude in baggy pants, but it wasn't when we were kids. The general populace wasn’t really hyped on you being a skateboarder. But fashion is influenced by subcultures, whether it's graffiti or underground house music or hip-hop or whatever. I think people take references from that and bring it to the mainstream because it gives them credibility. And to be completely real, I think most people aren't that cool. And that's just how it is. Pop music, if you listen to it and you think about it, most of it sucks. It's the same thing with clothes.
Stephen McClintock: But we're not cool. We're still not cool.
Ryan Garshell: Yeah, I'm definitely not claiming to be cool. I'm just saying that taste is subjective, and my taste doesn't align with popular taste most of the time. And I think that's how subcultures thrive, by not aligning with popular tastes. If you can translate that less popular taste in a way that is still visually appealing, you stand to gain something out of doing that. I think that's how fashion is affected by skateboarding.
The homie skate crew is an age-old tradition in skating, but GX1000 seems to roll particularly deep. I’d imagine that’s at least partly out of necessity because you need a bunch of people to block traffic going down a hill. What’s the highest number of spotters you’ve used on a hill?
Stephen McClintock: The more beers you bring, the more people just start showing up. They just multiply like gremlins.
Ryan Garshell: I've definitely used quite a lot of spotters. For the larger hills directly in the city, you need more. I don't know the exact amount, but I would say probably 10 people. But it's not just a necessity with the spotters, I think it's just who we are and how we function, not even as a brand, but as a crew. It's more of a family.
A friend recently said that the GX1000 dudes are the gnarliest guys in skating, but it seems like no one knows their names. And while that's not entirely true, I knew what he meant. A very recent Thrasher interview starts with, “So we finally got a name for the guy with the beard.” Is that something you guys have noticed, too? Why do you think that is?
Ryan Garshell: [Laughs] For sure. I think that has a lot to do with my approach to showcasing the actual skateboarding. I know it can be to a fault for the actual skaters and their professional careers, which is unfortunate. I don't think it should be that way, but I do recognize it. My goal when I'm making a video or trying to shoot a photograph or anything is to make you feel like you're there. And so I stopped putting names in the videos maybe a decade ago. To me, that just disassociates the viewers so heavily from feeling like they’re there. But I think that also makes it a little more difficult for an average viewer who isn't a really deep fan to know who everyone is. However, I think that's cool because the people who do know [the skaters’ names] really care.
Stephen McClintock: He just doesn't want to write the names because it's more work. He doesn’t really know how to type or spell. It should be a C, but he's writing a K and then he just gets all turned around.
I'm sure that you've gotten this question before, but have you guys ever put a speed gun on people?
Ryan Garshell: [Laughs] There was a police radar sign in the San Francisco neighborhood Twin Peaks and me and Pablo Ramirez used to try to go as fast as we could past it. But no, I haven't really done that. It's not about going the fastest, that's what people don't understand. It’s about scaring yourself and going fast, feeling alive, having a bond with your friends, and being able to trust people to the utmost extent where you're like, “I could die if my friend didn't spot for me. Or if he falls right in front of me, I'm going to fall and get f*cked up, too.”
It's like a cool trust fall.
Ryan Garshell: Yeah, I just think it’s about more than going as fast as you can, because there are longboarders and people who skate certain setups in order to go much faster than we've ever gone. It's a self-challenge thing: Can you overcome your fear? And something that always sticks out in my mind is what one of the guys, Zach Krull, once said to me: “The moment you get scared or doubt yourself, that's when you're going to go down.”
GX1000 feels like the polar opposite of the San Francisco tech scene. Have you guys noticed the influx of tech money affecting the skate community at all? Has it made certain spots harder to skate?
Ryan Garshell: I would say that it affects certain aspects of skating, but also it doesn't really matter. Yeah, it's become harder to afford to live here and be a skate rat, that's just realistic. But man, there are new kids coming every week. And more kids are skating here than ever. I think regardless of the tech industry or any industry that could pop up, you can't skate stop the hills. People will still come here and figure it out and try to live out their dreams anyway.
Stephen McClintock: It's those cars that don't have the drivers you got to watch out for.
Ryan Garshell: Yeah, that's pretty scary. JP Escobar got hit by one in our [2022] video Right Here for Pablo. That is the first sign of the tech industry affecting the hills, I would say.
You guys have done a lot of artist collaborations over the years. How do you approach those projects and are you particularly excited about any coming up?
Stephen McClintock: We've been working with Jonathan Yarolem, he's been doing the board graphics lately. We still do stuff with Joe Roberts [aka LSD Worldpeace] a sh*t ton. He's family at this point. But a lot of this new stuff has been in collaboration with Jonathan, and so we're hyped on that.
Ryan Garshell: I love all the artists we work with, whether it's a one-time thing or an ongoing relationship. Everybody's been so amazing and Stephen does such a good job of translating their vision onto the boards. Honestly, it boggles me how he does it every time. You'd be surprised how hard it is to just put someone's artwork on a board and have it actually make sense.
Stephen McClintock: If we work with someone, we just try to make them feel comfortable. I don't know, we might seem intimidating or f*cking crazy or something, but we're really nice.
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