Leggi l'articolo su beautynews : the photo shoot and interview for L'Uomo

As a 12 year-old he was dominating amateur contests in his home state of California, and by age 14 he had made the transition to pro. Just two years later, Hawk was widely regarded as the best skateboarder in the world. Alongside , Rodney Mullen, Mike McGill and Lance Mountain and other elite skaters, he was part of the Bones Brigade. By the time he was 25, he had won 73 of 103 contests at the professional level and finished second 19 times.

Tony, you have been accumulating victories one after the other for so many years. One great moment in that arc was when you landed the first ever 900 at the X Games in 1999. You launched at full speed in the air, twisted your body two and a half times (900 degrees), and landed it. Everyone was blown away: until then, this trick had existed only in theory. Were you taken by surprise, too? That was indeed a great surprise, even for me! I had attempted the trick for over ten years, during which I had suffered a broken rib, lost teeth, back injuries and several concussions.

Over ten years? For just one trick? Yes, more than a decade. It’s crazy, isn’t it? But that lucky day, I had the clear feeling my spin was consistent; when I was in the air, I remember my body felt at the right place, both in time and space. As I started to see the landing zone, I thought to myself: you know what? If I’m going to ever get hurt again on this, it should be here. It’s either I make it, or I leave this place on a stretcher.

pagina 1 / 4 Striped sweatshirt in cotton with nylon details, color-block bermuda in nylon, 1 Moncler JW Anderson; embroidered socks in cotton, Celine Homme. Clara Balzary

When you landed it, it looked miraculous, if not supernatural. The other skaters – in theory, your competitors – invaded the ramp and raised you in their arms. What is this famous solidarity among skaters, so uncommon in other sports? There is a lot of camaraderie in because it is more than a sport: it is an art form, and skaters have respect for one another’s art. There isn’t a dog-eat-dog attitude towards winning in these events when we compete. Ultimately, we’re just throwing out the best we can do, and then it’s up to the judges to rate it.

That achievement quite closely coincided with the release of “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’’. Late last year, a remastered version was released and sold a million copies in ten days, which is a record for the franchise – how did you update the game? We updated skaters and tricks and even some of the locations, but not by much because we wanted to stay true to the original series’s fan base. For the same reason, we brought back almost all of the original cast of characters. Nearly all of them still skate actively! So we presented them at their current age, including me. pagina 2 / 4 What does it feel like to play... yourself? It’s always been fun! But it’s a little more unnerving now because the technology makes it look so authentic: when my character falls, I feel it almost in my body!

Leather coat with painted letters, Marni; t-shirt in cotton and zebre sweater in wool, Celine Homme; shorts with coulisse, Loewe. Clara Balzary

Falling in many sports is synonymous with failing. But not in skating. The basics of skateboarding are not that difficult to learn. However, once you get into the weeds of learning tricks, you are going to have to do them over and over again, and at times for weeks, months, even years, before you finally master them. By the time you do, you have fallen thousands of times, and that’s ok. One thing this sport teaches you is how tenacious and resilient you are.

And what did it teach you about your level of perseverance? As a kid, I once knocked my teeth out and suffered a concussion. I lost my senses. When I awoke, as they were putting me in an ambulance, my first thought in my head was: “Oh, I’ve got to learn how to do Rock ‘n’ Rolls better!” From that moment on, it became clear to me that I would fall a thousand pagina 3 / 4 times just to succeed once.

You have stated that skateboarding improved your self-esteem. It did, indeed. When playing other team sports, like baseball or basketball, I never felt like I was progressing at a measurable rate, and I had to rely on the team to rate my success. But when I discovered skateboarding, I felt like it was finally a sport that I could do on my own terms, at my own pace, in my own style. Finally, I was able to set my own goals while remaining a part of a community, which gave me great self-confidence.

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Fashion credits: Photographs by Clara Balzary Styling by Clare Byrne Stylist assistant: Maddie Kachurak Grooming: Holly Mills @ The Wall Group Set design: Bryn Bowen On set: Kendal Simon

Read the full interview by Michele Fossi and see the photo shoot by Clara Balzary in the May issue of L'Uomo, on newsstands from April 13th

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