Vans Europe presents ‘Natural Born Cooler’, a promo which sees the extended European Vans squad hit up spots across Luxembourg, Spain, Austria, Cyprus and Italy over the previous year. With full parts from Kris Vile, Chris Pfanner, Victor Pellegrin and Nassim Guammaz, this video also sees Swedish tech wizard and step hop enthusiast Albert Nyberg officially welcomed to the team and further clips from Ross McGouran, Josh Young, Alain Goikoetxea, Jonathan Thijs, Sam Partaix, Joseph Biais, Martino Cattaneo, Yeelen Moens, Flo Marfaing and Muki Rüstig.
Nyberg kicks things off with a selection of characteristically stylish oddities, from hardflip and cab flip hippy jumps through to a number of ridiculously technical wallie variations, to the mellow strings of Link Wray. His after-song enders also act as the kick off for the ensuing montage, including the mind melting casper wallride which recently graced the cover of Free Magazine, before a cross section of the team get into it. This is followed by a part from our own stair crunching Brummie Kris Vile, who tears up a number of rails and gaps before adding to Nyberg’s hippy bullying with a spicy switch heelflip number.
Next up is Chris Pfanner’s powerhouse charging married to the sounds of Keith Morris in the form of the Circle Jerks, a heavy combination if ever we’ve seen on! Normally if someone did a half cab late shuv to start a line on flat I’d get up on my soapbox and vitriolically condemn it as belonging in the depths of 1992; but Chris’ style and pop means that he can pull of things which others can’t, or shouldn’t.
The final part of the video is an ode to big hair and big handrails, as Victor ‘Doobie’ Pellegrin and Nassim Guammaz egg each other on to larger and larger rails, gaps and anything else which lays in their path. Not many could pull off skating to Nick Cave without the soundtrack overwhelming the skating, but these two definitely pull it off – this is some of the most savage stunt planking I’ve seen in quite some time, frankly it’s been quite a lot to take in before 10am on a Tuesday morning when I’m only one coffee deep. Get the kettle on yourself, watch it, reboil, make another, watch again, go skate…
Edited by Paul Labadie.
