Cooking with Jason Dill: Zeitgeist of Street Culture
Jason Dill drops in and out of the pop-culture zeitgeist as if he’s holding the keys. A regular face on the early hit reality TV series The Osbournes; he’s graced the cover of Thrasher Magazine not once but twice in separate decades; a character in EA’s popular “SKATE” video game… You can even watch him in the Jud Apatow Netflix original series, Love. But for Dill, these things are mere distractions from where the real action takes place.
At the epicenter of style and culture since hitting the streets and traveling the globe as a professional skateboarder in the 90s. Dill’s nonconforming contributions to pushing skateboarding as an art form, while challenging style critics in both function and form, is palpable. In the 2000s he tore through the skateboarding zenith—most notably, with his part in Alien Workshop’s Photosynthesis. Already operating in the upper crust of professional skateboarding, with long curls, a tight tank top, and loose-fitting bottoms that seemed to get shorter in tandem with his hair. Dill’s style is as steady and contentious as his opinions. Honing an innate ability to marry the cuttiness of the streets with high fashion, he started his now wildly successful brand, Fucking Awesome, as t-shirts while living in NY in the early 00s. Spending time running around with artists Dash Snow, actor Chloe Sevigny, and the Irak graffiti crew. The t-shirt label known initially as simply ‘Dill’, started selling at a single, yet very significant New York City store. Today FA has grown worldwide and adorned by top artists while under the feet of the biggest names and brightest faces in skateboarding and street fashion respectively.
“None of this would have been possible if Gino Iannucci hadn’t brought me into that store back in ninety-four”, he explained. “There was no way I would have walked through the front doors at Supreme if those guys hadn’t taken me there.” Being embraced by fellow skate teammate at the time and cohorts such as Keenan Milton first sparked his interest in style.
“I remember one time flying to New York with Keenan [Milton]… We were at the airport and he’s like, ‘damn Dill, take your shoes off. Let me re-lace those for you’. And he was right. To this day, I lace my shoes exactly like Keenan did it. Gino, Keith Hufnagel and Keenan had a huge effect on wearing my gear properly”.
Fast forward twenty years, Supreme’s first feature length skate video Cherry is released housing a monumental final part for the late-great Dylan Rieder—an icon of style who was taken under the wing of Dill at an early age. Cultivating much of the young talent that director William Strobeck put together so well, forever bookmarked in skateboarding history, Cherry introduced fresh young faces; Na-Kel Smith, Kevin Bradley, Sage Elsesser, Sean Pablo and Tyshawn Jones to a global audience, sparking what ultimately set the stage for a large share of the street style today. When asked about his current inspirations, ‘the kids’ as he refers to them, are always top of mind. “I want people who are Nak’s age to like what I make whether it’s FA or whatever else I'm doing.” Dill says. “I’m not making this stuff for me, I'm making it for other people”, he explains. Age is a theme ever-present on his mind except perhaps when he’s referring to early influences and predecessors. “Seeing Mark on his YouTube channel showing the Stan Smith FA shoe (2019) and skating in the Tyshawn FA shoe (2020) just made me so happy,” he remarks in reference to some past adidas collaborations he’s designed, and admiring how his favorite skater of all-time, Mark Gonzales, still pushes the limits with bright colors and the bravado of a young artist.
“With skating, if you can look down and you like your shoes and you like the way your pants are falling on your shoes, and you like the way your top is—whether it’s a button-down or whatever… it’s all flowing with the movement of what you’re doing. It’s like ballet.”
A sacred misconception in skateboarding—which by proxy, will always influence streetwear—is the paradox of function over fashion. It’s all part of the energy that’s going into the actual act of skateboarding. “I’ve never been a fan of big fashion.” he clarifies. “I don’t give a shit about that stuff. I liked looking cool on my skateboard and I think that’s where the outfits came from in Photosynthesis. But there were no logos so I was wearing ‘fashion stuff’, but at the same time, you know, I didn’t give a fuck about fashion labels.” Ultimately destroying what most would want to preserve; a page out of Gonz’s book.
Still young teens, back in 2012-13 “The Kids’ as Dill still refers to them today, met each other organically through skateboarding. He reminisces of the days before FA made skateboards, “I’d get Alien boards for Sage or Sean Pablo. KB was already sponsored, Na-Kel was already getting boards from another brand. But they knew FA as my brand and they liked it.” With adoration, Dill recalls having an encounter with Tyler, the Creator, where “he comes dressing like me with the pulled-up socks in the cutoff blue Dickies…” with the utmost admiration. “It was fucking cool”. Much like how Tyler would have grown up with FA, friend and recording artist Earl Sweatshirt grew up with FA as well. “It was this thing that they already knew of, and it was my thing that sold at Supreme and stuff.” So when the time came for Dill to part ways with his long-term board sponsor, graduating to pursue his own thing and make FA a proper skateboard brand, there was only one question left: Who’s on the team?
“There wasn’t even a question, those five for sure. Without a doubt, and that’s what it was. I’m lucky that they all worked out. They just dressed cool. They looked cool. They were still in that period of like what you look like before money. To me it looked like how we looked when we filmed for “Snuff” (1993) or “Trilogy” (1996).
Attracting and recognizing greatness is something Dill has done consistently well. Referring to the broader role he has stepped into with adidas, he sets the table, explaining much of the art he’s been making and turning in recently has nothing to do with FA. “It's just like, hey, show this to Originals, show this to, you know, Soccer... whoever you guys think it'll work for.” Preserving his unique level of precision, Dill’s unapologetic authenticity is met with less cradling or attachment to the final product. “I just come up with all the ingredients and they cook it. And if they cook it — they fucking cook it.”
Respecting tradition while introducing modernity is never a bad look, but Dill isn’t one to shy from the extreme either. “I’m either going to do stuff that’s out there, that’s pretty wild looking, or I’m going to make something that’s more refined and mellow that just lands.” he says while speaking to the new Samba Dill. With adidas’ support behind him, Dill is less concerned with the nitty gritty. “I was fond of the idea of skating in what is essentially a soccer shoe because soccer and skateboarding are very similar in the movement and the way we put the pressure on our feet.” he explains of why he chose to work with a Samba. “The T-toe and how thin the collar is and how very thin the tongue is. It’s all perfect placement for me.” But the one thing he always thought about was, “why do they do that brown sole on the black and white one?”. Recognizing an opportunity, he thought, “hey you could take the toe and make that white and can make the sole a semi-clear blue and it could really pop.” Simple choices it would seem, and yet not done until the Samba Dill. “They let me do the Samba and I just want to continue to do more with it. I'd flip the fuck out of those to make the main-line”. A direction his many fans might find surprising. “I just think it's a cool shoe… why wouldn’t you make that available for purchase on a bigger scale? There’s so much more to expand on.” Clearly, this is just the beginning.
The Samba by Jason Dill is available April 6th at FA’s stores in Los Angeles and New York and FA e-com, then through the Confirmed App and core skate accounts starting April 9th.
