Vans x Civilist: Sauer, maulpuff und boofing kratom
- Posted on
- By Yoni
Last Saturday we were one of the lucky EU skateshops to be invited to Berlin for the pre-release of Civilist’s latest Vans collaboration. The pack is dubbed ‘Coffee & cigarettes’ or like they say in german ‘sauer und maulpuff’ because it was inspired by the boys of Brunnen’s daily morning routine. They describe it best themselves: “There might be a chance that you are working at a petrol station, a H&M in the middle of nowhere or at a skateshop. Wherever you work (or maybe you don’t work at all) there will be opening hours, closing hours, breaks and routines. If none of the above applies, pull yourself together! Our daily routine when opening up the store consists of the usual…clean up the mess the kids left the day before, put money in the draw, switch the lights on, and then take a short walk to our infamous coffee spot to grab a freshly brewed COFFEE accompanied by a CIGARETTE. If you care about the story, it’s true, the first thing that happens at every skateshop before it opens is a COFFEE and CIGARETTE (Don’t smoke it’s bad for you!). “
The pack consists of two Authentic Pro’s: a cigarette one in a true white colorway with light grey stripes over the upper and filter-yellow insoles to resemble a ciggy, and a coffee inspired one featuring a black „coffeesack"upper and coffeebean-printed insole. Both shoes come in a special box, have Civilist Berlin embroidered in a swirly font on the tongue and even sport branded silver/copper lace tips to top it off. You can also feel free to skate in these since they have an Ultracush insole and a Duracap layer underneath the upper to ensure a durable skatesession. Civilist also had a third model, a real eyecatcher, exclusive for themselves. They digged through the old Vans archives and found the infamous Style 47 DX: a Slipon with one Velcro strap on top. This may sound simple but it’s actually genius and really good looking; classic Slipons often don’t fit right for everyone and can become floppy after skating them for a while, but the Style 47 DX strap ensures a good fit and option to strap tighter. In a clean black suede colorway with embroidery on the straps, it was no surprise these beauties sold out at the Berlin launch already…
On Friday night we were welcomed by the boys of Brunnen with some late night frontrow beerchugging at the store. The launch event started Saturday morning though, when we got to try out the Civilist morning routine. I myself normally don’t drink coffee or smoke cigarettes (except sport cigarettes) but thought I’d give it a go to see how it feels. It was actually rather tasty, but my bowels felt like a washing machine. There were cigarettes, coffee cups, beans, lighters,… spread around the store and even a donkey with cigarettes coming out of its butt (and I’m not talking about SHRN’s Simon). Freshly brewed free coffee on the go and a smoke machine topped off the theme and Civilist couldn’t get any more coffee & cigarettes vibes going than they did, job well done! After the caffeine/nicotine breakfast, a mellow skatesession followed at the local Pappelplatz park, which you may remember from our Civilist Q&A with Julian from a while back. For the occasion they built a cigarette painted pole jam (which looked sick!) and a coffeebean-inspired wallie. Probably amped by all the coffee, Civilist’s own rider Collin Mclean was surely the MVP of this session with a couple bangers that definitely made some heads turn. After the session we headed back to the store, where a beer bus was waiting to tap some fresh Pilsner’s for us until the late night hours…
By now you’re probably wondering what that weird little sentence in the title means. Boofing kratom. Well, this isn’t a paragraph for the kids. Not even a single skater from all over Europe could tell me what it meant when I read it in my latest Tinder match bio description. Urban dictionary to the rescue, but before I looked up the meaning, I was already texting that I’d be down to boof some kratom, expecting it would just be some german gibberish. It wasn’t. Good advice: don’t say you wanna try things if you don’t know what they mean. The internet told me that ‘to boof’ means to plug something in your bumhole and that ‘kratom’ was a kind of opiate related plant. Safe to say I wasn’t ready for this. It kinda became a catchphrase on the launch event and you would hear someone say ‘boof kratom’ every 5 seconds. Luck was on my side though, as it turned out the girl was actually pretty nice and just joking about the kratom boofing (or was she?)…
The next morning I got up, drank a coffee, smoked a sport cigarette out my hotel window, and headed back to Belgium. It was a really nice launch event that packed everything you want and need in one day: a good breakfast, some mellow skating, and some vague memories of consuming a lot of Pilsner Urquell. The launch of this pack for select EU retailers is tomorrow, Saturday 7th of October, so be sure to grab yourselves a pair at our Flagship Store or through our online shop if you share the same #sauerundmaulpuff morning routine as the boys of Brunnen. Wanna try your luck finding the steezy Style 47 DX’s which sold out at the Berlin launch? Keep an eye out on Civilist’s webshop for a small restock… You snooze you lose!
Shop more Civilist HERE
Shop more Vans HERE
www.instagram.com/civilistberlin
Civilist Skateshop, Brunnenstrasse 13, 10119 Berlin, Deutschland
Thanks Vans for flying me out, thanks Julian, Foley and Collin for giving us a warm welcome in your hometown, thanks Schwingi for letting me use your photos, thanks Wesley for hooking me up and thanks Charlene for letting me discover what boofing kratom means <3
Yoni
all photos by Stefan Schwinghammer from Solo skatemag
