Alex Olson

Alex Olson

Personal information
Full name	Alex Olson
Born	1986 Santa Monica, California
Website	callme917.com biancachandon.com olsonstuff.com
Sport
Country	United States
Sport	Skateboarding

Alex Olson (born 1986) is a goofyfooted American skateboarder, company owner, and entrepreneur. Olson runs the companies Call Me 917 and Bianca Chandon. He is the son of professional skateboarder Steve Olson.

Biography

Early life

His first memory of skateboarding was of Christian Hosoi doing airs on a Half-pipe while talking on a wireless phone, Olson was six years old at the time. Olson grew up in Santa Monica with his mother until the age of ten, when he moved to Malibu to live with his father, former-professional skateboarder Steve Olson. In Malibu he started skating. According to his father, he came home one day and made an announcement: “Yo, I’m a skateboarder.” His interest in skating reignited his fathers' interest. Olson grew up skating the Vans skatepark in Orange County, where his father would take him often, despite the hour-and-a-half drive. His father raised him with the advice: "don’t be stupid," "don't do drugs," and “fuck street skating.”

Olson saw his first skate video, Toy Machine: Welcome to Hell, at a sleepover. His two favorite parts were Donny Barley and the fall section. At a young age, Olson found the artistic nature of Jason Dill's part in the Alien Workshop Photosynthesis video (2000) influential. As a young skater, he looked up to: Andrew Reynolds, Jim Greco, Erik Ellington.

New York City

Olson first visited New York in 2005 when Jason Dill, at the height of his career, bought Olson a ticket to NYC in response to a MySpace message: “Hey, I would love to come to New York.” Olson flew there and saw the New York skate and cultural scene first hard for the first time. The scene that Jason Dill was in 2005 was thriving, including the popular skateboarding-influenced artists like Dan Colen and Dash Snow. Olson decided to move to NYC from California. He would live with Jason Dill for a bit. Olson also lived with Mark Gonzales for two months. While living with the Gonz, Olson would feed the cats.

Creative Practice

In addition to skateboarding and running two companies; Olson designs for the companies, collects music, DJs, and practices meditation.

Olson has also modeled for the fashion label Eckhaus Latta, walking the runway for their Spring 2018 show. Olson included a clip of the runway walk in his skate part for The 917 Video, explaining the situation to The Bunt podcast:

"These young kids have this brand Eckhaus Latta, and the kids that are around the area that they use are in the scene, so they asked [my girlfriend] if I wanted to walk the show...I didn't want to...what's the point?...I don't need the fucking Slap message-board to be going off...I was telling Logan... [but] if we film it..and put it in my video part..it would be hilarious to throw that in your part...as a trick..it's ridiculous and kinda good at the same time...so I got the hammer.”

Meditation

In an interview with Nowness, Olson described his meditation practice:

I do three different forms of meditation in the morning. I do a mindful meditation, guided. Headspace is an app for that. It’s a 15-minute meditation where you sit there, visualize your body being hit with sunlight, and then try to relax and feel that emotion. There’s a meditation called HRV —heart rate variance—and that’s all about syncing your mind with your heart rate and controlling your heart rate with your breathing. I do that for ten minutes with a heart rate monitor—and if you get bad thoughts, your heart goes down. It’s really interesting and it feels really good. The third one I do is Wim Hof. He was a Dutch man called “The Iceman” who basically explored all different forms of yoga and cultivated his own version. It’s like HRV, but using the cold and natural elements. He can sit in glacial water for an hour, and swim in glacial water and have no problem. Scientists would tell you you’d die of hypothermia, but his focus is so strong because he’s been doing it for 30 years. The whole process takes about an hour—Wim Hof is the longest.

Professional Skateboarding Career

Sponsors

Flow

His first sponsor was flow from twelve skateboards via Mickey Reyes at the age of 14. Throughout his amateur career, Olson was also on flow for the following deck companies: Alien Workshop, Toy Machine, Foundation, Black Label Skateboards.

Olson lived nearby the bowl at the Supreme store where he started skating with Mike Carroll and Scott Johnston. Johnston got him Lakai flow.

Once he quit getting flow from Alien, Olson remained without a board sponsor until; on the way, to the 2005 US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, Guy Mariano inquired about his board sponsorship. After learning he did not have a board sponsor, he offered to get him Girl boards.

Pro

Alex Olson turned pro for Girl in 2007/2008.

“As a kid growing up, I never thought I would get sponsored by them because they were at such a higher level,”

A friendship with Guy Mariano is how Olson started skating for Girl. At this time in his life, Olson would skate often with Mike Carroll and skate at the Berrics skate complex. The Girl team was filming for the Lakai video Fully Flared. On Olson’s first trip with Girl, he toured the US, in a “brutal but super fun” trip where he landed some good tricks. Before he got on Girl, he got a box of antihero skateboards and was torn between the two companies.

After Fully Flared came out, Olson quit the Lakai team and joined Vans. After Vans, Olson joined Nike SB.

After the Girl and Chocolate video Pretty Sweet came out, Olson felt disappointed and quit Girl. He wanted to start a company with a friend. He briefly planned to join Brian Anderson at 3D Skateboards before quitting before the company opened.

Olson wanted to start a company with longtime friend Dylan Rieder, they initially planned to collaborate but Dylan pulled out. Olson decided to start his own company.

Olson is currently sponsored by:

• Bianca Chandon
• Independent Truck Company
• Spitfire
• Supreme
• Nike sb

Media

Olson was on the cover of the May 2015 issue of Transworld Skateboarding doing a backside 50 50.

Companies

Olson founded Bianca Chandon and Call Me 917 unintentionally simultaneously. He started out by introducing Bianca Chandon via the number (917)692-2706. If you would call the number you would get an answering machine that said hello you have reached Bianca Chandon. Once Olson started releasing Bianca Chandon stuff, he abandoned the number because it had lost its function. He released some boards, for himself and others, under the Bianca Chadon name but as the company was taking form he did decided he did not want it to become a skate company.

Olson did not envision a team for Bianca Chandon; however, he meet some kids he wanted to support them and start a team so he brought the number back and founded a separate company. Olson compares it to Polo:

...like how Ralph Lauren has the brand Ralph Lauren and he has Polo by Ralph Lauren. So 917 started to take shape slowly, it took some time for people to get to know the brand, understand the brand, and for us to build a team around it.

His two brands, Bianca Chandon and Call Me 917, have made him "a highly visible model of the self-taught skater-turned-entrepreneur."

Bianca Chandon

Bianca Chandon is fashion brand described by Nowness in 2014 as "a hybrid of sports culture and 1970s music and 1970s fashion, inspired by an image of Bianca Jagger riding into Studio 54 on a white horse, and the glamorous yet tragic French racing driver, Olivier Chandon."

Olson explains: “It's based on all the things I'm into and always liked or found interesting,” whose inspirations include Wolfgang Tillmans’ early shoots for Purple, Tom Bianchi’s book on Fire Island and disco music. “I feel like people cared a lot more about craftsmanship and had pride over what they made—and the way girls looked back then.”