Sal Barbier
I've been friends with Sal for years. Before that I was a kid, and a fan that was loyal to the Etnies SLB 23 shoe. If you have no idea who Sal Barbier is, do yourself a favor and Google him. He's a living skateboard legend to say the least.
Sal kickin' it with our very own Aisha back in '07 at the REBEL8 Magic booth in Las Vegas. Good times!
Nice socks. Peep Mike Giant's Juxtapoz issue gettin' background props. I think that issue debuted the exact same day I took this photo.
In 2008, Sal and I decided to split a booth at Magic's SLATE with his signature brand SLBarbier. That was the original REBEL8 logo.
That Magic was the windiest I've ever seen Vegas. Sal lost his hair.
And just a few days ago we released our REBEL8 x SLB collaboration capsule. STOKED.
For the first tee Giant and I decided to play off Sal's most popular graphic, a snake wrapped around a wrench. Giant made the snake tougher and had the wrench transform into a dagger cutting through the snake. I think it came out sick! For the front of the shirt, we made the iconic 23 into roman numerals and did the same for our 8. Took the same script from the wrench and voilà!
The second shirt is a hand breaking through the ground holding a wrench. It symbolizes Sal's comeback and REBEL8 "breaking through." We're not the most underground now and it really trips me out. I'm still adjusting. The one thing I can attest to is that when we started in '03, we did things our way and on our own terms with respect to all who showed it. Today that same ethos remains. And that quote on the bottom of the graphic is from the Gravediggaz. We're the resurrectors! The front of the shirt takes the same roman numerals and crosses two wrenches. This very well may be one of my favorite tees we've ever done.
I almost forgot about the hat we did. You'll have to click here to check it out. Hope you're having a wonderful day. Thanks for reading my blog.