A Super Nintendo, a vintage scooter, Vans caps and Duff beers. Entering Dimitri Jourdan’s is an immediate journey through time. The imposing basement fitted out by this 36-year-old Lyonnais, in his house located in Grigny (Rhône), contains above all nearly 500 skateboards retracing his passion, from the 1980s to today. The founder of the first museum dedicated to skate in France fell in at the age of 10, and he remembers “having taken care of” each of his skateboards ever since.
During his childhood in the Croix-Rousse district (Lyon 4th arrondissement), his father often took him around Les Terreaux or to Lyon’s first skatepark on the Cours Charlemagne, long before the launch of Confluence. “Skateboarding was not yet fashionable in France but I spent all my Wednesdays and weekends having fun with it, and as a kid, I managed well,” says the 30-something.
“There are guys that I have ripped off”
After launching from 2000 to 2005 his brand of “punk rock clothes”, Disturb, Dimitri Jourdan notes: “Some enthusiasts have been able to specialize in a single brand or period, but overall there have never been large collectors of skates in France ”. For ten years now, someone who has been employed for a long time in a Vans store has therefore started to hunt around, mainly on eBay.
Born in the 1950s on the other side of the Atlantic, skateboarding is so much a part of the Jourdan family’s life that Dimitri always takes out a board on his vacation spots, whether in Morocco, Turkey or Israel. Other trips, such as Barcelona, Switzerland, Germany and Norway, have even been planned in order to meet collectors there. “I cross Europe to empty cellars everywhere,” smiles the founder of Disturb House museum, which opened in July. Sometimes I come across little treasures. There are guys that I ripped off because they didn’t realize the value of their boards. “
Tony Hawk’s helping hand himself in 2021
This Rhone prefers to remain discreet about the quotation of his boards. On eBay, some models from the 1980s that he does not own can fly up to 20,000 euros. “It’s easy to explain: some quads have a teenage crisis and they want to get their hands on vivid childhood memories. In 2019, he had the chance to meet the legend of the discipline Tony Hawk, during a presentation in Paris for the big premiere of skateboarding at the Tokyo Olympics. Where one of the two French representatives on this Olympic competition was from Lyon, namely Aurélien Giraud, 6th in the event.
“I don’t speak a word of English so it was complicated,” says Dimitri Jourdan. But he made me understand that he let me have his board, because this one would go very well in my museum project. This board dedicated by the American, whose video games bearing his name contributed to the rise of the practice in France in the 2000s, is featured in the entrance of this Disturb house museum in Grigny.
A board brings Donald Trump and the Ku Klux Klan closer
His models sometimes go far beyond the framework of skateboarding, between the Andy Warhol series of the brand Alien Workshop, a crazy parody of the Last supper, or the tribute to
Charlie hebdo release after the attacks in limited edition by Cliché. The appearance in 1997 of this first brand launched outside the United States by the skater from Lyon
Jeremiah Daclin symbolizes the strong historical link between Lyon and the discipline. “Skateboarding deals with a lot of themes, with frequent subliminal messages on the carrying of weapons, homosexuality or drugs, summarizes Dimitri Jourdan. Real Skateboards even released a board that caused good talk in the United States, since we can see
Donald Trump shake hands to a member of the Ku Klux Klan. “
So many beautiful collector’s items that this father of three has accumulated for a long time in his apartment in Gerland. “I stored my skates behind the doors, in the kids’ rooms, I was unbearable! He laughs. The move to a house in Grigny, about twenty kilometers from Lyon, therefore offers him other perspectives, starting with the opening of the only skate museum in France that he had in the back of his mind since 2013.
A real skatepark will be built in front of his home
Since the opening to the public of its quirky basement in July, it has welcomed nearly 500 visitors, “full of curious people but also day camps”. The pre-teenagers of Rhone did not have the right to draw a mysterious black curtain worthy of “old video clubs”. Namely his few boards with a pornographic dimension, which have always been sold “in confidential opaque black bags”.
While a great media coverage of skateboarding in France is looming with the Paris-2024 Olympics, Dimitri Jourdan’s projects are numerous: to organize themed exhibitions, to become a skateboard teacher and to build a skatepark next year in front of his home. 100 m2 with a large ramp. The person concerned is aware that this last point will perhaps not be very well received: “I believe that those who were able to do this in France have all had problems with their neighborhood, but I am trying it anyway. ” Thug life in Grigny.
8 euros paid guided entry to the Disturb house museum. All information on the Grigny skate museum (Rhône) is here.