London-based pro-skater Lucien Clarke is releasing the first big collaboration under his personal brand and creative platform DCV’87: a fully reworked OG skate silhouette with DC. “Usually doing a shoe, it’s part of the basic skateboarder starter,” Lucien explains. “Get on a team, pick a shoe colorway, film a part and work your way up. But this is so much more special. It’s with my own brand and DC gave me full control over it.”
To make the project even more significant, Lucien chose his birthplace, Jamaica, to film the campaign. “Being there was just amazing,” he says. “To see everyone that was down there, understanding the program: the skate park keeping people out of trouble and being this place for community. Skateboarding was separated a lot from things when I was growing up. It’s good to see that where I’m from, it’s now more integrated.”
We headed out for the week-long shoot around the island — along with photographer Julian Klincewicz, as well as Lucien’s mum and uncle — to chat with Lucien about his upbringing, the importance of family and how his very close friend, the late Virgil Abloh, inspired him to start his own brand.
What exactly is DCV’87?
It stands for “Dark Clarke Views”, and 87 is just when everything started for me — when I was born. But the abbreviation isn’t set. It could be “Dominating Creative Vision,” or anything really. I wanted to create something for my own ideas, and as a platform for other people to collaborate. I started it up just before lockdown. The initial idea was to do something with photographs, zines, merch-y things and storytelling. This shoe with DC is the first big collaboration, which is really nice. I was able to reconstruct an OG shoe.
Similarly, the trip to Jamaica, where the campaign was shot, felt like more than your regular photoshoot.
It’s where I was born, so that played into it a lot. When we were first talking about this, the trip was important, going back to the roots. Like that photograph in the advertisement, it’s an image of me holding my cousin’s hand. That picture pertains to a particular story.
When I was five years old or so, I was playing about in the backyard with my cousin Cheryl, just being kids and mucking about. I was teasing these dogs, not thinking or knowing that their gate was open. So after a little while, I heard my cousin screaming for me to run. And I look back and there are like six of these Alsatians running after me. Obviously, I’m thinking, This isn’t good. Because in Jamaica, guard dogs are just that, and they get treated pretty badly. From birth, they’re just angry. So I’m running and my cousin is like, “Let’s climb up this tree.” She’s six years older than me and big enough to climb up this big-ol’ mango tree in the garden next door at our neighbour’s house. I was too small and was only able to catch a little grip of her hand, reaching down to me. But then I slipped and dropped to the bottom of the tree. The dogs surrounded and attacked me. It was quite severe. I had to get rabies shots and a lot of stitches. That’s when I moved to New York. I guess my mum got the news and she was like, “Right. Okay, you’re coming to New York.” She was living there at the time, working.
What was it like moving there?
We moved to a Jamaican community in Jamaica, Queens, where we have a lot of family. I liked it a lot. The food was the same and I was surrounded by Jamaicans, so it wasn’t that much different. It was only the weather, and no James Bond Beach. Then after about six years, my parents got divorced and mum wanted to start fresh. We had family in London from my dad’s side and she had a lot of friends from growing up that moved here. It was here that I started skateboarding.
My mum met this guy, and took my brother and me to meet him for the first time at Hyde Park. I remember walking past a whole bunch of skateboarders by the Albert Memorial and ended up sitting down and watching them for ages. I was mesmerised by it, really, asking the skateboarders to have a go on their boards. I guess he could see how much I was into it because the next day he got me a board — me being the new stepson, you know? After, he’d always take me to the park, to the same spot. Eventually I started making friends with people. They’d teach me how to do this and that. Just real basic stuff. Firstly, I had to get some skate shoes, because I was skating in sandals… I haven’t really stopped since then.
It reminds me of the super young kids we met at the park in Jamaica, skating barefoot. Always with these massive smiles on their faces, having the best time in the world.
It’s a different love affair, really. They’re so young and really active. Just amazing to see that. I haven’t been back to Jamaica in probably six years and the park was built since. So that’s the first time I’ve gone and seen it. Before I was just watching it on Instagram, keeping in touch with people. Saying, “Can’t wait to meet up.” It was cool to finally do that and put a face to the ’gram. And to see how kids have improved their skills.
We drove for so many hours, all around the island. How’d you come up with the shoot locations?
That was easy. I know Jamaica so well. I knew I wanted to go to the Blue Mountains and Boston Bay. Jamaica is pretty small. It’ll only take you about three hours to get up to the other side. We didn’t have too much of a plan though, really. That’s the best time: floating around, running into things, just being there, enjoying it and soaking it up.
Family was a big part of the trip. Your uncle David was so funny, oscillating between being really easy-going, happy, playing the tour guide, and then being very, very serious, playing this on-duty security guy. Arms folded, no small talk.
Yeah! Remember that night? He was like our security guard. That’s the first time I’ve seen him like that, actually. He’s always been sort of protective over me, but that night he was moving like the secret service. You can’t play games with him when he goes into that mode. It was mad to see it. That’s a gemini trait, that one.
He also always had on some item from DCV, or some collab on that you did with LV and Virgil.
Yeah he was always repping hard. He’s my biggest fan, man. It’s wicked. Back in Tampa, he has a sign company called CGS Signs. I did an apprenticeship with him when I was 17, spent a couple of months learning the craft. One morning when we were in Jamaica, we woke up and decided to wrap our rental van in temporary graphics. Unfortunately, most of the island was shut down for Carnival. Luckily, the guy that taught Uncle the business was cool enough to open up his shop for us — that was legendary of him. We spent the whole day there doing it up. It was cool to see my uncle back in his element with this guy who taught him, see him being a kid again in the workshop, cutting up all the stickers and all of that. It was one of those wholesome days, you know?
Then there was your mum, always incredibly dressed, talking to everyone we met around the island. She was singing and dancing with that one birthday group we met on the road.
Yeah everyone had their role. Like Veronica, she was just watching everything and was like, “Whoa, this is what you do?” When I was younger, doing the apprenticeship with David, we’d spend a lot of time together and she was really strict with me. So it was really funny and amazing to see her on this trip and be like, “I’m a man now.” And for her to see what we were trying to do with this project. Obviously, with mum, she came at it like an oracle. She kept the mood light, always. She’s funny, man. She lives a 15-minute walk down the street from me now. Growing up she had to play both roles with me and my brother, my dad being gone. As you get older you start to understand how hard that shit really is. We re-bonded when I got old enough to understand what she had to put up with and go through to raise us. And she didn’t do a bad job! Me and my bro are doing alright. We’ve definitely gotten closer… And also another reason for going to Jamaica was that my Uncle Will passed away. So ,we went to a funeral before we started this shoot, and the whole family was there, so that made the whole project even more rooted. Afterwards, it was like, “Right, we’re going to go into this journey now. Doing this vision and doing it where it all started.”
What’s next for DCV?
Before he passed, Virgil opened up the first skate park in Ghana. I want to do something similar to what we did with this project, but over there. What inspired me to do DCV was speaking with Virgil. I’d always show him photographs or short little movies or anything else I’d make to see what he thought. He always supported me and my eye, and would say, “Oh man, you’ve got to make this into a brand or a platform.” He was really the person that kicked it off and gave me the confidence to do something on my own. So, eternally grateful, definitely.
Credits
Photography Julian Klincewicz