Fostering a world-wide sneaker community has brought many opportunities to us here at Under The Palms. We’ve recognized that our best asset is knowledge, bridging communities, and preserving history and culture, at least in our own world of Vans sneakers. For our official mascot, and hopefully the first of many characters to join the UTP family, we wanted to do it right. We wanted to share with you, one of our most influential graphic artists, who is probably the most significant artist of the 80’s, especially in the surf and skate world. We’re talking about none other than Steve Nazar, who you might recognize from the famed T&C Surf Designs tees, and more recently Thrilla Krew. His infamous characters are iconic, and are instantly recognizable, and I’ve always loved Thrilla The Gorilla. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have our own character that we could call our own. One that you could say has been accepted into Da Boys. It was tough deciding on what type of character I wanted to go with. We needed an alpha character, just like Thrilla, large and in charge. After thinking it over, I thought an English Bulldog’s strength, attitude and loyalty best represented us, and channels our youthful vibes, as my high school mascot was a bulldog. When I commissioned Steve to create the type of character I wanted, I had no idea how dope it was going to look in real form, but as soon as I first laid eyes on him, I knew he was special, and Steve delivered exactly what I had envisioned. We had our very own icon, right out of our youth, to represent and lead our lifestyle and community. Let me remind you, I’ve been sitting on this since early 2015, before Steve re-introduced Da Boys to a new generation through his brand Thrilla Krew, just in case you have any doubts about our authenticity with this. In fact, I originally asked if Steve could make us a Thrilla graphic for Under The Palms, and he said he had something planned in the future for Da Boys, and couldn’t let us use him, but that was the best thing that ever happened to us. We got our very own character that we could call our own! Oh, and while he was at it, I had him throw in our very own yin yang logo, and iconic lettering for us, so that’s also very dope! I wanted his debut to be special and grandiose, but the more I’ve waited, the more I feel like I’ve just wasted time and talent. Who knows what he will become, but I figured I’d just introduce him to you all, and then we will just see where he takes us! With all that being said, we introduce to you, our own badass leader, Billy Bulldog.
