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gq:

Fashion Week? It’s Also Thrashin’ Week!

A dispatch from GQ’s resident skater historian Cole Louison (whose kickass definitive history of skateboarding, The Impossible, is a must-read, but that’s a whole other subject):

Much as we celebrate Fashion Week, it has also fueled a pretty creative anti-culture. The celebrities, the paparazzi, the self-appointed security guiding sidewalk traffic while we try and get to work—there’s a lot to grumble about. But this year things seem to have reached a head. Maybe Anna’s entourage cut off the wrong people, or everyone’s still seething about 2010’s lumberjacking at Lincoln Center—and doesn’t that fucking tent gets bigger and more permanent-looking every year?—but for the first time a group of notable Uptowners have mobilized to launch a counter-event. Introducing Thrashin’ Week: a celebration of edgy music, counterculture, and all things decidely not FW. Held at the swank Stone Rose Lounge by Lincoln Center, within gawking distance of the great white tents, the event is a brainchild of nightlife gurus Gerber Group and energy drink Godhead Red Bull, who have erected a full-scale skateboard ramp INSIDE the lounge. Pro skaters will give demos and host clinics, with music by Motion City Soundtrack, London Souls, Terry Urban, and more. Events are open to the public. Leave your snakeskin boots at home.

“edgy music” and “counterculture” events don’t have corporate sponsors, don’t happen in swanky lounges, and are the product of “kids” in “the scene,” not brainchild tastemakers/promotion companies.

People who are actually taking part in Thrashin’ Week will be running from cops outside of the Time Warner Center, not drinking free Red Bulls inside of it.