How his first copy of Skateboarder magazine taught a future Hong Kong metaverse fashion CEO ‘persistence, creativity and resourcefulness’ in life and business

The bible of skateboarders, produced in Southern California and mostly sold in skate shops, Skateboarder magazine was published periodically between 1964 and 2013.

Richard Hobbs, founder and CEO of Hong Kong- and Singapore-based metaverse fashion studio BNV, who has spent decades working in the fashion industry, tells Richard Lord how volume 3, number 4 of the magazine, which was published in April 1977, changed his life.

I guess from about age 11, me and my mates discovered skateboarding. We’d build stuff, break up old roller skates and make something out of them. In those days there was no social media. You’d see something on something like (former British current affairs television programme) Nationwide and realise there’s a whole gang of you who are really into it.

From age 11 to 16, it was the single biggest factor in my life. It was all I dreamed about, every waking moment; and in the summer, from morning to night, it was all I ever did. It was at a very formative period of my life.

This was the first skateboarding magazine I ever purchased. I’d have been 13, going on 14. It came out in April 1977, but it wasn’t available in the UK till a few months later. I probably bought it at a skate shop in Bristol [in the west of England]. I didn’t have much money in those days; I spent whatever pocket money I earned there, working in a pub, doing the dirty work.

It was amazing. You’d open it up and see these pictures of people, mostly in California, which was the nirvana for skaters, the holy grail. We wanted to recreate those actions and those lifestyles in rural Somerset. You’d see all these people in amazing clothes, using amazing products, which you couldn’t get, and it motivated you.