Meanwhile, at the mall…

So I was hanging out at the mall, bringing my kid to see some really lame Shriners clowns who were out stumping for the upcoming circus. Of course you can’t go to the mall without surveying the goods and services available. There were two major department stores with skateboards as display props. I borrowed a point and shoot camera on the spot and did a little investigating.

Skateboards as props in displays

First up is Nordstrom. As you can see below, they are going for a urban chic vibe, with the pinstriped embroidered skateboard and the low rider bicycle. I think the dog may be left over from a fall oriented display, becasue it looks more like a hunting dog than a pitbull.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that this fancy padded longboard was familiar. Turns out we covered it a couple years back. If you look closely at the display, you’ll notice that the skateboard is just leaning on a metal stand, unencumbered by any sort of physical locking device or noticeable security alarm. I’m not advocating anything, especially since this dispaly is really close to the outside door. I’m just pointing it out…

Also nearby is this wall display with an awkwardly photographed kickflip. From a distance and even up close it kind of looks like the kid is sitting on the bench with his feet resting on an upturned board.

Next I ventured over to Macys. They may have a larger corporate organization than Nordstrom, but the merchandise is definitely more pedestrian. Looks like they are going for urban not-so-chic. Yes that is a Spiderman skateboard displayed with the Sean John (Puff Daddy) line of clothes.

Here’s an Ecko display with another toy store skateboard.

From the other side you can see this Variflex board (and all the others) looks like it was left out in the rain. They don’t quite have the budget for displays that Nordstroms does. They must have gone to Good Will for these props. They left the turf dirt on the wheels to lend grit and credibility.

However, it looks like Macys does have a special purpose display board stored in the mannequin archives. This one had a very nice flat gray paint job.

Now that’s a kingpin worthy of being called King! I’m not sure what stage Indy’s these are. Maybe they are some sort of Bizarro World Grind Kings.

That’s it. I didn’t bother to go to the Pac Suns and minor clothing chains, so there might have been more. These were the two that were most out of place.