Or: Too Much Information

Don Brider has a colourful resumé in skateboarding. From being one of the first British street skaters, to producing everything from zines, boards, T-shirts and videos to.. subversive stickers. And that is where the story of this graphic begins.

In the mid/late 80’s, Vision Skateboards’ clothing brand, Vision Street Wear, was supposedly the biggest money-maker that skating had ever known, and Don’s response to the then-omnipresent VSW logo was to make a sticker reworking it as ‘Victim Street Wear’; a comment on the many band-wagon-jumping fashion victims (and a dig at Vision itself, a company whose ethics he did not approve of).

*Don B at 'Handrail Land', Southampton, late 80's; photo: Abbott*

Vision, of course, didn’t take kindly to this criticism, and soon, Don had reworked the (fashion) Victim idea..

The origins of the ‘Zone’ graphic are hazy. I seem to recall Don telling me that he had lifted it from a record shop ‘Christmas Free Zone’ logo on a carrier bag, or something..

In any case, in the first version, it was his then-board sponsor Brand X who declared a Victim Free Zone.

(And one of my earliest skate memories is seeing Don B, with McSqueeb haircut and patterned beret, slapping a Victim sticker on the train door opposite me, when I found myself in the same carriage as him en route from Southampton to Southsea skatepark for the Shut Up And Skate contest, as a youngster. It was my first trip to Southsea (or any skatepark).. and I think I may have just unlocked, like a good psychologist, the reason I got him to make these stickers for me.. But I digress..)

The design got updated in the early 90’s for Don’s clothing company Wear and Tear, when they, too, declared a Victim Free Zone. As such, it was a graphic that was always ‘around’ in British skating of that period.

*Don B at Dead Rabbit's, Winchester, early 90's; photo: TLB (?)*

And now, as a tribute to those days, that man, and the abolishment of fashion victims; here it is again (see 'SHOPPE' above). Hand screen-printed by Don B himself and available in limited quantities-

Push Declare a Victim Free Zone.

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