The professional skateboarder turned designer talks about his brand DCV’87, the late Louis Vuitton menswear creative director, and the return of style from his youth
Lucien Clarke has been on a roll for two decades, and earlier this month, starting with Hong Kong, he embarked on his Asian tour of opening pop-up stores for his own clothing and lifestyle brand, DCV’87. Hong Kong’s pop-up also coincided with the opening of an indoor skate park at Hysan Place in Causeway Bay, which is where we sat down with Clarke to talk about his shift towards designing, the life lessons he learnt from the late Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton, and his views on the intersection of skate and fashion cultures.
The Jamaican-born London-based skater went professional as a teenager skating his way around Southbank, which is where he became affiliated with the skate brand Palace and started modelling for them. After which he also started to model for Gucci and Louis Vuitton, and it was working alongside Abloh that firmly put him on the fashion map. Today, besides DCV’87, Clarke also designs shoes for DC Skate.
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Tell us about your brand, DCV’87.
DCV stands for “dark Clarke views” and 87 is the year I was born in. It started with my photography and putting together ‘zines—storytelling through images. Then, I thought, “why not make some clothes using those images?”
I put them on the back of the shirt, so it felt like more of a visual surprise when you turned around. Now I’m thinking more about what else I can put out, including making more videos and even jewellery.
I want to just inspire people to be creative, to not be scared of whatever's on your mind and to put it down.
Who inspired you to start the brand?
Virgil [Abloh]. He was the one who got me into all this. [A few years ago] I made this design booklet and showed it to him. He liked it and told me I should continue, and so I started DCV’87. He was my main inspiration—along with my mother!