"Par Hy" / PREMIERE
it was only a matter of time before a french skate crew felt like pondering a few questions regarding how to bring one's questionable thangs to the session in the classiest possible fashion. in fact, that's exactly what happened to the founding heads of hyskatebag, most of them of bordeaux descent, but having everything manufactured in paris, and their ideas do seem functional seeing how the brand is on the rise to the point where they just had the physical premiere of their latest audiovisual offering: "Par_Hy", entirely filmed amid the french capital. now if real life interaction irritates you, or if you were too isolated to be able to attend, here it is, available on the internets, put together skate-en-ville style by julien dellion and side-to-side with a "5 W's" with co-founder paul austin!
What is Hyskatebag?
Hyskatebag is an ode to the practical. A simple, clear answer to the problems of just about anybody regularly finding themselves bothered by their full pockets, be it out skating, on party nights or really just about any time of the day.
The idea was born in Bordeaux, but the manufacturing is exclusively Paris-bred. We wanted to try and prove it was still possible to produce and drop real, France-made pouches.
Granted as of now it isn't as notorious as the infamous baise-en-ville from France in the 1930's yet, but we're aiming for the development of a product that qualifies as both practical and aesthetical.
When did you guys launch your brand? Is "PAR_HY" your first big clip?
We launched the brand back in May 2017, when our first run of bags dropped. Around that time and as to better really distinguish ourselves and stand out, we left on a week-long trip to Barcelona with the notorious Yoan Taillandier.
Then back in December, we also worked with that kid who's originally from Bordeaux but now resides in Marseille, Luc Mazières of the TRTR crew, a collaboration which eventually resulted in this Bordeaux clip.
And now, we're dropping "PAR_HY", filmed by Julien Dellion in Paris upon our visit last September.
Where are most of your riders from? I'm spotting quite a few Bordeaux heads it seems...
I don't know if you really can call it "our riders", they are our friends first and foremost and that's what keeps up going. Our core members are from Bordeaux yes, people we've known for years such as Fred Plocque-Santos, Edouard Depaz, Pierre Lèze or Léo Cholet, but France is full of players playing for our team! Matisse Banc, Victor Pellegrin, Florian Merten, Matt Debauche… Nobody's got real obligations, whoever wants to tag along may feel free, but if not, then ah well!
"Everything regarding colorways, orders or shop inquiries, we know how to handle as a group"
Who is currently involved in the brand?
It's three of us who originally started it: Gorka De France, Alex Richard and myself.
Everything regarding colorways, orders or shop inquiries, we know how to handle as a group; although everybody has their own set of unique skills, we all make the decisions together.
More specifically, Gorka is in charge of everything regarding the production, from working with the suppliers to scrutinizing the last few touches on the final samples.
As far as I'm concerned, I handle everything visual, also thanks to Jérémy Tran, the man in the shadows.
And Alex just supervises all said mess, as to ensure that it's remaining somewhat coherent.
What are you hoping to develop around the brand, concept-wise?
We have this sensitivity we are trying to develop.
Our first video we trusted Yoan Taillandier with, but Yoan already has a strong, easily recognizable visual language he's established in his works before, so maybe our own imagery took a slight hit there, as we were just launching the brand too which might be a bit confusing.
Now for this Paris edit, we've worked with Julien Dellion, closely, collaborating on the choice of clips to keep, the editing but also on the soundtrack with Mathias Elichabehere. Basically, we've had a say on the whole creative process this time and I think that's what we'd rather do from now on.
We might have been on slight autopilot at the start but the more we progress, the more we'll figure out what our identity really is and we'll age like fine wine!
Then again that can also prove to be tough seeing as we all have side jobs, which doesn't exactly enable us to spend as much time and thought as possible on a coherent concept... But we're working on it!
