Packed: Una Farrar
Photos by Una Farrar.
Una Farrar is such a joy, both as a person and a skateboarder, watching any of her parts you can’t help but find yourself with a gleeful grin throughout it.
Over the past few years she has turned pro for Krooked, traveled the world, Vans launched their Mixxa model with her signature colourway and in December she put out two video parts in Antisocial Skateshop’s Antisocial Summer and Dime’s GLORY: The Legend of Dime. Both are incredibly beast and I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but you should probably watch those parts again after you read this.
Last year she came to Melbourne from Vancouver to play basketball on the Vans team at the Bunt Jam, we hung out a bunch, having so much fun going to see my favourite things the city has to offer: Fitzroy Skatepark and the armour of the executed 19th century Australian bushranger and outlaw, Ned Kelly.
As a lover of stuff, I was curious to see what Una carries with her on a day to day. I called Una to get an intimate look into what she packs in her bag.
So, Una, what's in your bag?
Dude, what isn’t in my bag? I’m pretty stocked up. I’ve been a backpack kid forever. Sometimes I’ll be wearing my backpack, meeting my friends at a bar and they’re like ‘What do you even have in there?’ And I’m like ‘It’s honestly just only smokables,’ a small bag of smokables in this huge backpack that I don’t know how else to carry [laughs].
I’m a backpack kid too, I bring it everywhere.
It’s dope, right.
It is but sometimes I feel so weird walking into a bar with a backpack [laughs].
Dude, I know, but I’m so adjusted to it that I feel weird with it on and weird with it off. I miss it when I don’t have it and then I have it, it’s so in the way, you bump into people when it's crowded, you have to watch it all the time and you kind of look like a kid [laughs].
What bag do you have?
I have a Star Team shoulder bag that Kyota [Umeki] gave me, it’s camo on the outside and has Star Team logos on the inside. It has a slip compartment so you can slide it over the handle part of a suitcase.
I love Kyota’s stuff and I bought some things from the Star Shop while I was in New York last. Whenever I’m in New York, he is always out of town, and we never overlap. He messaged me after I went to the store and was like, ‘I was out of town, missed you again, can I send you some stuff?’ He sent the sickest box ever with the bag and a couple of other things, I was so hyped. The bag looks sick and is an excellent travel bag, thank you, Kyota.
I like going to the Star Team store, it’s right next to Tompkins and has a really good vibe, there are six little different stoops around it to chill on and drink coffee. Five doors down is the FA store, so a bunch of people are always around.
Fun Fact: the street outside connecting the two stores is where I filmed my ‘Five on Flat’ with Big Hen Dog and where he would film all of them because he worked at FA.
The Five on Flats are so sick.
Man, I was so stoked to get one. I was so nervous because my flat game is pretty hit or miss but when I did it, I did it in a couple of minutes. He was like ‘I think that was one of the fastest ones we’ve done’, I was like ‘No way’. I was so tired, I didn’t want to keep trying and do anything sicker.
FINGERBOARD
It was a gift from the higher ups at Dime – The Gods. They made a couple of custom fingerboards, they have some kind of proximity to someone who makes finger boards, either their warehouse is near a fingerboard warehouse, or they have friends that make them. They got a handful of them made with the Dime logo on them, it’s nice wood, has 5-plys, real bushings and bearings, every time I saw them at the office, I would glaze them. One time I went in, and they were like ‘Yo, we have something for you’ and they gave me one. I was so hyped. Having a fingerboard on you is so clutch for when you’re bored.
Where’s the craziest place you’ve fingerboarded?
I’ve fingerboarded in some stupid places. When I was in Berlin for the Copenhagen Open a few years ago, I realised how big it was out there, our Airbnb was next to this fingerboard shop that had this whole room of parks and then the basement was this whole DIY. It was crazy. Anyways, I’m on the train going somewhere out there and I hear someone fingerboarding, and I was like ‘What the fuck’, I was going to do that, but like you don’t do that on trains or planes. I got up to get a drink, then I saw this kid fingerboarding on the tray and I was like ‘Yo’, and he was like ‘Yo’, I showed him my fingerboard, he pulled down the tray next to him and we were skating together [laughs]. He didn’t speak English, we weren’t even talking but he was tapping his board giving me props when I would land something. This is such a fire memory, on the train in Europe fingerboarding with some random kid [laughs]. I was like holy shit, I’m going to remember this one.
Was he good?
Dude he was so good, he was way better than me. He was probably like thirteen, I was probably only eighteen too at the time. I was so young.
Have you got a pro Krooked Tech Deck yet?
No, I would be so hyped. Seven years ago, I was in Walmart, I always look in the toy section and there was a Tech Deck set of five Krooked pro boards. This was before I rode for them, I got the set, then I got on Krooked and was like ‘Woah, the prophecy!’
Manifested with buying the Tech Decks from Walmart. I hope you get one, that would be so dope.
That would be a life hammer, it would feel like going pro again. Seeing your name on a board is one thing, then seeing your name on a fingerboard is also so dope.
You have a T-Tool in your bag, but do you have a fingerboard tool?
Dude, I have a fingerboard board bag with a tool in it that I keep in a camo bag that I keep in the camo Star Team bag. It has a couple extra bushings, some wheels, and a tool.
Do you have more fingerboard replacement stuff than skateboard stuff in your bag?
Yes…
Awesome.
I was just thinking about that, I don’t have any extra bearings or bolts or anything in my bag, but I have the fingerboard shit. It’s dope though just having a fingerboard screwdriver you can fix your glasses; it comes in handy for these little, tiny, small screws. It comes in handy more often than a skate tool does.
GLASSES
Genius. Have you ever broken a pair of glasses while skating?
I’ve never broken a pair of glasses while skating, but I bring a spare pair on every trip now. I went on a Krooked trip to the UK, I was really sick from the plane, and we got on a shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel and I needed to puke. While we were on the highway, I put my head out the window to puke and my glasses flew off and immediately got run over, we couldn’t even go back and get them [laughs]. I was like ‘Dude, I just got here and there goes that!’ I had prescription sunglasses with me that were pretty ugly but I had to wear them for three days straight until I found a way to get new glasses. I ruined three clips and a photo wearing them because they looked so dumb.
SKULLCANDY ICON ANC
My headphones and my charger are pretty awesome. It is so clutch to have a sponsor that hooks you up with that. Portable chargers and speakers are so insane.
What Skullcandy Headphones do you have in your bag?
I have the Skullcandy Icon ANC, they’re a little old school looking, they have an exposed wiring curl that looks cool and a little knob to change the song instead of a button like what is on all the other headphones. It covers less of your ear, but it sounds just as good, and I like how it sits on my ears.
DICE
I have dice in there because in LA we started playing dice because playing Cee-Lo with ones is so fun, but you come home to Canada and you try to play and we’ve just got coins that does not hit the same [laughs]. You have to play with fives and above and you’re like fuck this is actually kind of steep. When you have ten bucks in American ones it feels fake, it's just like paper.
Who’s the best at playing Cee-Lo?
Dude, Breana [Geering], she’s got magic hands with it, but the best person I’ve ever seen with it is Will Marshall, it is like a joke to him its fucked. He baits guys so well, ‘He’s like come on, what are you going to do, you want my money?’ Then he wins every time.
Damn there’s so much dope shit in your bag.
A lot of dope shit indeed. I always have lighters, cigarettes, and papers too. I love being the person who when someone asks if anyone has a paper, I’m like ‘Yes! I do actually and they’re the good ones!’
How often does it go from ‘Do you have a paper?’ to ‘Can I just roll a cigarette?’
Yeah, it's normally that, it’s usually a segue, but I’m down, I like feeling useful.
Most of the time I’ll have an extra layer in my bag, a rain jacket, and a beanie. You never know what the weather is going to be like here. I’d never leave with just a T-Shirt.
GAS STATION BEANIE
I have a good beanie on now. It is a grey beanie with an eagle on the side and I got it from a 711 on our roadtrip to LA for three dollars.
So good you actually got the gas station beanie.
Yeah, I put it on kind of as a joke and I was like ‘Guys, should I get this?’ They were all like ‘Wait, that’s actually kind of sick’ and I’ve been rocking it ever since.
Dude, we went to these Goodwill’s in these random towns, and I got a blazer. I got a clip in that, and I’m hyped.
[Laughs] Blazer clip is so good.
It’s just hilarious [laughs].
You need a fedora clip next, for sure.
This is just the first door opening up, who knows what’s next. It’s funny too because I feel like if you throw a blazer clip in a part, just one, it is like a wakeup and people clock back into the video being like ‘What were they wearing in that last one? Why?’ [laughs].
Just the one clip to keep everyone interested [laughs].
The engagement clip [laughs].