Henry’s Jewelry
Images by Allan Stoops, portraits by Sam Muller
I think it’s funny when fashion people talk to me about skateboarding, because they tend to comment on things that are obvious if not ubiquitous among actual skateboarders.
They talk to me about shoelace belts and Jim Greco. They learn only from TikTok. They don’t skate. They have no idea.
From tight pants then baggy pants then tight pants then baggy again, skating has always been a tastemaking culture far ahead of the curve, and I imagine that in a couple of years, Christian Henry’s handmade jewelry garment line, Henry’s Jewelry, will be one of those obvious mainstays in skateboarding that some Dime Square idiot has only just discovered. That idiot will find me at a party and, as I clutch the pearls that Christian had strung for me long before, will bore me with lines like, ‘yeah, this skater on Real and Dickies - he rips, but he also makes necklaces! It’s pretty niche, pretty cool stuff. You’ve probably never heard of it.” Yeah, man. I fuckin’ know.
Everyone and their mum owns a T-Shirt brand. Creating personalized, one of a kind pieces of jewelry is a much harder, even nobler thing to pursue. It is a garment made painstakingly by hand, worn around the neck and over one’s heart. It’s sentimental, unique, and somehow a bit more of a worthy thing than a screened piece of cotton. I’ve never been one to directly advocate for the purchase of one thing over another thing, especially in print where it can haunt me forever, but if it’s between an original Henry’s piece and another crisp streetwear T-shirt, I can tell you most assuredly that the shirt on it’s own merit will not get you points, noticed, or laid, but Henry’s necklace might. Ever the fashionista, I phoned Christian from my bed one brisk morning to ask how things are coming along and how soon I can make a purchase.
*Henry’s Jewelry website will be live and ready to take your money, here.
Are you skating today?
I might go skate, no plans though. I have this interview and then I have a meeting at 12. You know Vivian Kim? She lined up a meeting with these people who wanna use my necklaces for a shoot and the stylist wants to link with me. They’re gonna pick out some pieces to use.
How’d this all start?
I had already fucked with jewelry pretty heavy, but I went to Europe for a few months and had seen so much and was so inspired by my homies who had done things with jewelry. I was like, ‘I love this, but it’s kind of expensive, and I don’t want to hit people up to get free jewelry - how can I do this?’ I wanted to make the things that I would buy. I went to get some pieces to mess around with at home just for myself. I wore them out and my homies would be like,’yo, let me get one!’ It escalated to the point where people who don’t live near me were asking for it. People were telling me to really try and make a website and an Instagram for it, so I figure alright why not?
It’s funny that you started making jewelry because you didn’t want to hit people up for free jewelry, but now people are hitting you up for free jewelry.
Yeah [laughs]. I just wanted to do something that I could get really into, and something that I could get really good at and enjoy.
Who are you pulling from? Who are you inspired by?
My friends definitely influence me because I pay attention to how they wear their jewelry and the items that they like, and I see how I could add my twist or my interpretation to those types of items. I would say my homies for sure, places that I’ve traveled to, the people I’ve seen wearing jewelry in certain places so that I’m not thinking of one type of person or one circle. I try to look outside at how punks, fashion people, skaters wear their pieces and mix them all into my stuff.
It reaches outside of skating, for sure.
Yeah, but I also want skaters to fuck with it.
Is it all handmade?
Yeah, each piece is handmade by me.
What is the plan? I know it’s early days but are you thinking about online sales? In store stuff?
Yeah, it’s very early days, still. I’m building out a website right now for it, so that’ll be up soon. It’d be cool to have a store one day in a city that I’m a fan of - somewhere that makes sense.
Is this something that you see progressing congruently with your skateboarding career?
Yes, yes absolutely. I see it going hand in hand with my skating. I will be doing this as long as I can. I get excited seeing people be excited to be wearing something that I made. I get some kind of hype when I see people just going up in my jewelry, enjoying it. I just want to keep doing that and keep seeing people in them.
Yeah, it’s a weird extension of you, people are putting you on in a way. I always hear about people starting shirt brands, but that is way less personal than an individual handmade piece.
Yeah, and it mellows out my mind a lot. I think about skating hella and shit so when I’m doing this, I am only thinking about this. When I go skating, I know that I wasn’t only thinking about skating all week, I got a little break and time to clear my head a little.
Times are definitely changing, but in my experience growing up in it, skating has always been a very traditionally masculine thing, and your jewelry in a small way sort of challenges that idea. Especially because you’re not making skull rings and shit.
I see where you’re coming from with that. No one has asked me about that before, but one of my friends did kind of mention something similar to me about challenging. He was saying back in the day when people were trying to become pro skaters, no one was trying to run anything that wasn’t skating or trying to start something up and if you did, you were looked at kind of weird. You could only do skating. Now, it’s sick to see that people are doing other shit, you don’t have to just be core skating all the time. If you like something else, you should be able to put it out there. I feel like the industry can sometimes make you not want to show that other side of you and what you’re into, whether it be acting or music or whatever.
I think that skating can kind of keep people in their place a lot. You can only do accepted things like painting or photography; skateboarding-related arts.
Yeah, I see what you’re saying. It sometimes seems like skateboarding doesn’t like when skaters want to do something else like make music, or make any other shit. For some reason with this shit, nowadays everybody’s wearing jewelry in the skate industry, but there is no plug, really. I’d like to be that for the people in my skate community. Of course, people outside of skating and in other communities, too, but I want skaters to fuck with it. Skaters are starting to branch out and find the ways that they like to dress and I think that this fits in with that.
I grew up in a sort of homogenous era of skating where it was just Lakai’s and a FourStar tee and tight pants, so these looks are really challenging to someone like me, but I like a challenge.
Same, yeah, literally just FourStar tee’s. And that’s fine, that’s what you grew up on and FourStar is sick. Nowadays though, you don’t know what to expect.
You making jewelry, I did not expect that. What does someone have to do to get a piece?
The website is almost finished, I’m just working on more pieces to get up there and securing product shots. Honestly, it could be fired up any week now, there’s just a couple of things I need to do before that. At the moment, it’s either someone that I know or someone I’ve seen around here that asks about it and I can get it to them - it’s been like that. I have been giving them to people, not really looking to charge right away, I just want to get them to people I like and get them out there and do the damn thing. People can hit up the Instagram and DM me to see if I still have those pieces in stock or for custom pieces. I also don’t feel right charging some people and not charging others, so I’ve been giving them away, which I’m not mad at, because I know I’m going to sell them off the site soon. Just starting out.
Didn’t you do a pop up shop with Sam Muller and 2001?
Yeah, that was sick! I sold some shit there, that was cool. I’m doing another one of those this coming Saturday in LA, and I plan to do more as the website comes out so that people can see what’s online in person. I’m also trying to do more of these pop ups because it’s usually with people outside of my own circle so different people can see what I’m doing and be interested.
At this moment, what can people do to support you?
Ah man. It’d be cool if someone invested in it, honestly. Other than that, people have been helping me in the ways that I need - guiding me with PR and photography, making content. At the moment I guess you could follow the Instagram and check out what I’ve got on there, and look out for the site launch. Hm did I answer that in the right way? I don’t want to sound stingy or greedy, I’m the kind of person that can figure shit out, I’m more talking in the long run.
Yeah you already have been figuring this shit out for a minute. Nah, man. You don’t get what you don’t ask for. If you don’t ask or put yourself out there-
-then no one is going to come, yeah, I see that. Closed mouths will not get fed. And that’s cool, I’m good where I’m at. I’m out here working on shit, and I plan to do it for a long time.
Get your hands on an original piece of Henry’s, here.