It's not often that the head of a major multinational footwear brand gets his hands dirty and designs a range of shoes himself, so for that reason we are breathlessly anticipating the culmination of etnies annual PAS collection, Pierre Andre Senizergues very own personal take on twenty two years of his brands and his life story.

To celebrate 22 years in the game, Pierre took it back to the early days by creating a retro infused collection of his one-time signature model the Senix.




This collection certainly wouldn't look to out of place on the shelves of a new jack streetwear boutique in 2008 or on the pages of Thrasher circa 86, That said, you are unlikely to find these at your local sneaker or skate store. Of the five colourways only a handful will be produced and will be available exclusively from Collete in Paris. The extremely limited distribution seems fitting for shoes that have a truly personal story behind them as Pierre explained recently when we caught up with him.

Hi Pierre it's been a while since we last caught up, your Pas collections are always very interesting and personal. What's the story behind this one?

I get really involved, it verges on an obsession with me, it's funny because I run a pretty big company but at the same time I put so much time in to this, but it's what I love to do, its what I enjoy, I enjoy the process, it keeps me involved but also it keeps me grounded with sneaker culture. I have been producing a PAS collection for the last three years, since our 20th anniversary, this being the 22nd, every year I try and think of a theme, 21 was based around the legal drinking age in the US, so I got thinking about 22, 22, what is 22? And then it clicked, when I lived in France, and skating in Paris we used to get chased by the cops whilst skating, actually we (skaters) are still getting chased by the cops, anyway, we used to say 22 voila les flics!' which roughly translates to 22 here are the cops, cops, it was like a code, it an old saying I think maybe from the 60's that we picked up on.

Hence the 80's skate theme for this collection?

Exactly, and with that in mind it also seemed to make sense to sell the shoes at a store in Paris, so I talked to my friend Sarah at Collette and showed her the collection during fashion week in New York, she loved the concept and the collection so we decided to make it exclusive to her store.

So how long does it take to pull the collection together?

I start thinking about it at the beginning of the year, what is the idea, What's it going to be, as I said get really involved, I come up with the concept, come up with the design, do a lot of sketches, of course I have a developers and designers assisting me, but most of it comes from me, have you seen the illustrations on the boxes?

Yeah, the skaters being chased by cops?

Exactly, I drew those illustrations myself at two in the morning, I still have to run the business but it's a lot of fun. So for the collection I was trying to decide what sort of shoes I should do, and I realised that something I hadn't see for a while in the sneaker world was this red and black sole that we were known for back in the 80's, its exactly the colours we used back in 86. So I dug out an old press clippings book I had for more inspiration, have you seen it?

The press book? Yeah we got sent a few photos, it's amazing! It totally ties in with this collection, you can see where a lot of the inspiration comes from.

Exactly, I tried to update it a bit though, so some of the materials are a bit more sophisticated, so as well as the black and red sole I also brought back the zebra stripes, which again was very much part of the original etnies look, along with the camouflage and animal prints that we have also included. It was all stuff we were doing with etnies early on as we felt it communicated the fact that skateboarding was an outlaw sport, a rebel sport, so it ties back in to camouflage to hide from the cops and the 22 voila les flics' theme.

So its not just some new-school street wear' brand hi-jacking that 80's look, its more authentic than that, you obviously put a lot more thought in to it than just trying to evoke a style that verges on parody. Does it grate on you slightly when you see brands coming out with product today that is not that different to what you were doing 20 years ago?

I think people want something that's authentic, I'm not trying to prove to that anyone isn't doing it right but I want to show that etnies is authentic and always has been, etnies has always been there, for 20 years, and its always going to be routed in skateboarding, we have no plans for changing where we come from.

Another thing that was important for me, and for the collection being at Collette was that etnies comes from Europe, and that there is no reason that a skateboard company can come from Europe and can't be doing great, were you come from is important, its ok to support your area and where you grew up.

Vulcanised is still massive right now, was that a consideration in picking the model to work on?

Its based on the Senix, which was my pro shoe when I was skating, we did a mid top version, I like to take something from the past, bring it back for today but improved, the idea of deconstruction appeals to me, taking something from the 80s, rethinking it, we had some great models in the early days, the Pro Team, the Iceman, in fact I have a shoe coming in spring 09 for etnies plus, which is a take on the Iceman, a more sophisticated version.

I don't know if you know the story but it's called the Senix because at school I was a big fan of Asterix, and when I was growing up, at kindergarten the kids couldn't pronounce my last name so they would abbreviate it to Senix just like Asterix and an Obelix.

Word to Getafix, Are you a big Asterix fan?

Yeah, I always loved the stories, the small village taking on the roman empire, it's a little bit like the story of etnies, we came from a small village and had to fight to succeed. So its very relevant to us.

You guys are known for producing probably the most technically advanced skate footwear out there, so is it hard to go back all those steps in the evolutionary chain, back to the land of vulc?

For me and for my brand we are always trying to do things better, just this morning I woke up and my back was killing me from skating for so many years, you know, so we are really trying to incorporate new technology that absorbs more impact like our G2 system, so hopefully the new generation of skaters won't have the same problems as us in the future.

With the PAS stuff do you find it influences the rest of the Sole tech family?

Yeah definitely I think one of the goals in creating the collection is to influence some of the people around me, and I felt there would be a move back to heritage within skateboarding, people are looking for something with meaning, everything is so globalised that perhaps we loose part of our identity, so something that goes back to the beginning helps to give people an idea of their roots, the production on these shoes is more this is akin to something an artisan might produce, its only 11 pairs of five colours in one store, so its super limited, you get to feeling you have something special. I wanted to bring back some of the heritage of the early days, when I was selling shoes out of my car.

A lot of people grew up wearing etnies, you always remember when you were 16 say, a lot of people now who are having kids grew up wearing skate shoes, they are the first generation of that, so if you can find something from back in the days but that is current too then it's very appealing, it makes you feel like a kid again

last question, do you have any chase stories from your Parisian days?

Too many! But one time, we ended up getting chased and we had to open a man hole cover to get away, we ended up in the catacombs underneath Paris, they were crazy, there was one area called the beach, it had a river with sand, it was like being at the sea but you were underneath the city!

On that Situationist note we will leave it there, thanks as always Pierre.