To the average Stanford student, Tobey may look like your average, well-dressed student: he’s humble, he’s kind, and has the witty sense of humor you only get from geniuses (if you know you know). But to the LA community–specifically South Central Los Angeles–and the fashion community, Tobey is the founder and creative director of Crenshaw Skate Club.
If you live under a rock, or simply lack all forms of media, Crenshaw Skate Club is a brand dedicated to increasing representation for people of color in the skateboarding community. Taken directly from the Crenshaw Skate Club (CSC) website: “When I would watch skate videos and flip through skate magazines, I rarely saw people who looked like me and my friends. So, I decided to start Crenshaw Skate Club to represent us in the skate industry. But, I did not want the representation to stop with just me and my friends. The overall goal of Crenshaw Skate Club is to represent and empower inner city skaters all over the world.” (Tobey)
I had the utmost privilege of taking Tobey’s time before his chat with the general FashionX community to ask him more about his journey as a founder, designer, and student. He started by telling me how the origin of CSC was quite serendipitous: after creating (hand-creating by the way) his first shirts as a way to promote Crenshaw Skate Club (at this time, just an actual club), he would spend his time loitering in the LA Supreme store. One day, one of his friends who was working at Supreme stopped Tobey and asked if CSC was “his brand,” to which Tobey said yes, despite it just being an idea in his head at the time. From there, he got into contact with the LA Supreme store wholesale manager, sent photos of his t-shirts from his cell phone as a way to deal with tech-packs and other technical terms he didn’t know about, and soon enough had 48 shirts selling in Supreme.
However, if there is one thing you take away from this article and from CSC, it should be that CSC is not just a brand. To Tobey, it is so much more: it is a way for him to represent himself, his culture, and his community to others. Which is why even with his shirts selling in Supreme, Tobey still didn’t feel as though CSC was a “brand,” he felt that “people only bought my shirts because it was Supreme, not because of CSC's message” (Tobey).
Wanting to stray away from the attachment to Supreme, Tobey learned how to build a website and launched CSC on his own; only to sell zero shirts his opening day. But instead of letting this discourage him, he took it as motivation to work even harder to never feel the way he did that day again.
This hard work paid off when during one of his pop-up events someone claiming to be Justin Bieber’s stylist had come to purchase a few of Tobey’s items. Not thinking anything of this, it wasn’t until one of Tobey’s friends had barged into his high school english class to show Tobey a paparazzi image of Justin Bieber wearing CSC. The photos didn’t stop there: Justin later went on to wear CSC during his interview with James Corden, on viral videos teasing new songs, on his birthday, etc. With this kind of publicity, more eyes were now on CSC, but Tobey knew he didn’t want another Supreme story to unravel with having CSC tied to Justin Bieber–which is why during this period, Tobey and CSC on social media didn’t advertise much of Justin wearing his merchandise. Rather, he viewed this new popularity as a time to take advantage of people's eyes on not only his merchandise, but more importantly his story.
Justin Bieber then transformed into opportunities with Coachella, Nike SB, and LA Chargers. When asked about his experience when working with such large corporations, he replied with: “Working with these brands, you’ve got to come to it with a story to tell and a unique perspective. You can’t sacrifice your purpose and your story just because they are a bigger company.” As an avid customer and consumer of CSC, staying authentic seems to be what has made his campaigns so successful. Tobey also continues to stay active in his South Central LA roots by partnering with nostalgic brands and restaurants of his childhood such a Randy’s Doughnuts.
However, when Tobey isn’t being the creative director and genius he is at CSC, he’s also a full time student. Like any other fan and student would, I had to ask: why stay at Stanford with all this success? However, Tobey emphasized how he values the education and experience he gets from Stanford, and says that in his previous experiences working in the industry, education barriers can be what causes people to be taken advantage of. He also mentioned how being a student helps with the duality of his character, and finds inspiration in the littlest of things on campus: from a quote in a history class, to images around campus, and even to books he reads for homework.
Crenshaw Skate Club is so much more than just a successful clothing company; it represents Tobey, Tobey’s community, and Tobey’s culture, and with CSC he is able to turn these things into a story for other people to relate to. To Tobey, CSC is an opportunity to feel represented in a world that he previously felt underrepresented in, and he hopes that in creating new narrative with larger companies he can help to make another person who looks like him feel seen.
When asked what is next, Tobey wants to continue making an impact, whether it be with upcoming collaborations, going international with another pop-up store in Japan, building a skate park in his childhood neighborhood, or starting an after-school skate program for the LA Unified School District in which he grew up in.
In all, Tobey has to be one of the most talented, driven, passionate, and humble people I have ever meant. I hope that with this article, everyone can understand how Crenshaw Skate Club is far more than just clothing, and that with each CSC-branded item, you are reminded of the story that Tobey wants, and will continue, to share.
Check out CSC here!: https://crenshawskateclub.com/
HUGE huge HUGEshoutout to Tobey!
Love,
Chloe
