Indie Spotlight: Detour
HUCK hangs out at Bath’s only skate shop.
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The small city of Bath in the west of England is somewhat of a haven for independent shops and cafes. And amongst this quaint retail collection, at the top of sleepy Broad Street, sits a little skate shop. The exclusive footwear, apparel and hardwear quite literally stacked to the rafters could make this place a little soulless. But with Brandon Biebel’s soundboard spouting shit over the airwaves, impromptu in-shop trick sessions and regulars coming in for mash-offs*, this place has a very homely vibe. Welcome to Detour. The last skate shop standing in this city.
What started as a stall in London’s Camden Market, selling second-hand skate and snow gear became a permanent Bath resident a decade ago. “The dream was always to run a skate shop and Bath needed one,” says Detour’s owner Toff Orpwood. “It already had a shop that was part of a chain of shops, but not an independent shop, and not a skater-owned shop that was run by skaters for the skaters.”
And so was Detour born – albeit originally under the name Darkotics - as a shop and brand. After three years of selling their own hard goods and streetwear, Toff felt is was time for a change. “When we moved, we wanted the name to change to reflect that we moved so we changed the name of the store to Detour. It was a detour from the old shop and a detour from Route One, our competitor down the road.”
Detour is ideological. It has a very clear business plan that it’s followed to the letter. This makes Detour much more than just a skate store: it’s the centre of the Bath skate scene. It’s a hang out, it supports a team of five to six local guys – the store gave Flip am Ben Nordberg his first sponsorship and he’s stayed true to them – and displays the work of local artists in the basement gallery. Perhaps most importantly, the guys working at Detour are skaters and they all know what they’re talking about. Says Toff: “Any true skateboarding shop is owned and staffed by skateboarders. I mean, you don’t buy a second-hand car from someone who can’t drive, do you? I don’t get how [chain stores] can be so successful when they don’t really know their product.”
In this day and age, Toff’s other area of concern is a little more surprising: the internet. “It’s all well and good this culture of buying stuff online these days, I think ultimately it’s the consumer who loses out. You can’t beat trying on a pair of shoes and making sure they fit well. I would never even consider buying a skateboard without being able to hold it in my hands and have a look at it and stand on it,” he says. “I think that particularly with skater-owned shops, it’s use them or lose them. People are struggling to stay in business, so if you’ve got a legit skate store on your doorstep, go and buy off them and support them. Don’t go buying stuff on the internet or buying stuff of the multiples.”
If chain stores and globalisation are the arch villains, who can then be looked up to? For Toff, it’s the skaters that have “based themselves here and still stayed part of the UK scene rather than chasing the money”. He cites Danny Wainwright, who runs neighbouring city Bristol’s core skate store 50:50, as filling these modest and comfortable shoes.
Ultimately, Detour has kept its head above water thanks to the brutal and relentless passion for skateboarding that Toff wears on his sleeve. “I’ve just sort of grown up with it as being part of my life, it means everything to me,” he explains. “It’s been there for me through bad times and good times. It’s what I’ve made a job for myself being involved in and it will always have a special place in my heart. But even when you get to an age where you can’t do it any more, I still consider myself a skateboarder for life.”
*mash-off /noun, mæʃ-ɒf/ noun a mash-off is a confrontation in which two or more individuals vie to establish who makes the best mashed potato, e.g. mash with leek versus mash with broccoli.
Hard-earned pennies don't last long when this selection is on the cards.
Team Detour.
Boards line the stairway down to the gallery space.
Killer screenprints from the in-store Darkotics range.
Toff hanging out on Broad Street.
Wall of inspiration and 'slag wellies'.
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Indie Spotlight: Detour (text) by Liz Seabrook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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