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Local Snowboard & Streetwear Label #NomadCollective Opens Its Pop-Up Doors On Pender

Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud sponsor of thisopenspace , a full service pop-up production studio with a flagship storefront at 434 Columbia St., Chinatown.

a full service pop-up production studio with a flagship storefront at 434 Columbia St., Chinatown.

It's a pop-up ready space and an idea playground where they've hosted over 70 pop-up concepts since September 2012. Every time a new pop-up is about to launch @thisopenspace, you'll catch a sneak peek here on V.I.A.!

logo_without@ Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud sponsor of thisopenspace,

Photo 2014-11-24, 10 12 38 AM

Local independent snowboard and streetwear label #NomadCollective is open now until the 30th and they've taken over the front of our friend's store Space Lab in Chinatown. If Space Lab sounds familiar that's because you've probably seen it at 126 E. Pender where they hosted Luke's General Store pop-up and Bootleg Barber's in the back. In August they moved into an even bigger space at 230 E. Pender and brought the barber shop with them. Space Lab's owner and neighbourhood good-guy Clint is all about collaboration and we're working with him to fill the front of his store with revolving pop-ups.

#NomadCollective is spearheaded by owner and head designer, Dave Greenfield - you've probably got a friend like him. He's the kind of guy who guides backcountry snowmobile trips, scuba dives with sharks, and runs with the bulls in Pamplona. In another capacity, he's an illustrator and designer taking time to develop a brand that includes gear for both men and women (to be launched soon), mountain adventure films, and a snowboard team to represent the brand's collective vision (and it all looks as sharp as a freshly tuned snowboard's edge).

We caught up with Dave to find out more about him and his snowboard and streetwear label. Read on for the interview and get the fresh details on the shop here.

@thisopenspace: Tell us about the collective. Who's a part of it and what are the different pieces of the collective?

Dave Greenfield: To me the collective aspect of the brand is how the brand is more than just a set of products we sell. It's about the ideas, the experiences, the artwork, snowboarding, travel, adventure and the people involved all around the "Nomad" theme of the brand.Amber's the one telling me what I need to hear not what I want to hear. Trevor does sales and has been promoting the brand since we launched online 2 years ago this month. Kyle has been my go to guy to go out and get pictures and footage to promote the snowboards, he's a talented snowboarder so I always get stoked riding with him. I'm the owner and designer.I think the collective aspect leaves room for change and growth. I like the ambiguity because it's hard to say where exactly this will lead, I have ideas and visions of where it will be but the unknown aspect is the exciting part. Just like when travelling, you may know where you are headed or who you're going with but its the unknown people, places and experiences that make it memorable. I think that is the same with brand to grow it has to change, and that exciting, scary but exciting.

When I hear Nomad I think of hitchhiking. What's your best hitchhiking story?

DG: I was living in Whistler with my girlfriend at the time and we had been out celebrating my managers birthday with drinks at the bar on the peak and then riding the mountain during the day. After a few hours we came home had a cat nap and went back out to a friends place where I vaguely remember a friend jamming on the guitar and we were all singing "Say it ain't so" by Weezer at the top of our lungs.Drinks kept flowing, and we ended up at a few venues before we shut it down in the village somewhere. My girlfriend and I managed to miss the buses and taxi, or we decided to walk, can't remember... but it's a looooonnnngg walk, and it was freezing out.So, we decided to try to hitchhike to get home, after a few cars passed, I remember just seeing some bright lights and could hear the rumble of bass coming from the vehicle. A black hummer pulls up beside us music blaring, no one says a word to us and we just jump in and start driving.Soon we are passed Creekside, passed our place, and we start wondering if we are going to Squamish? Vancouver? Who knows. We end up turning off down a road I haven't been before, and roll up to a neighbourhood of what I would say were all multi-million dollar vacation homes.We get out with a few of our new friends and go inside this mansion of a home. Everyone kept the party going as for me, I spent the rest of the evening hugging their toilet. It was one of those times when you get up the next afternoon and think what the hell happened last night.

When did you know snowboarding was for you?

DG: I started skiing when I was 8 years old and I remember seeing snowboarders and just knowing that I had to try it. A few years later when I was eleven, I think I had bugged my parents enough that they got the message, and that season I got my first snowboard. It still remember it vividly it was Rossignol snowboard that my parents had bought secondhand from a rental shop.I remember it was black and had a tin man graphic on it outlined in white. It had these old bindings with really low backs and the bindings that you just push together to tighten (no ratchet back then), it had a leash, and a stomp pad and I loved it, it was also way too big for me but I didn't know.There was just something about it that I liked more than skiing, it was really hard to learn, I thought so many times in the beginning that I had gotten the hang of it finally, and would get cocky and try to go fast or try to jump something and just catch and edge and hit the ground so hard. Everyone who has snowboarded knows the feeling.I learned to snowboard at Big White and if you've ridden there you know they get amazing powder, but it also gets really windy, icy and super foggy a lot of the time so I learned in those conditions. I remember it going from so much fun to so much pain quicker than you can blink, I was hooked right away.

Here's the product plug. What can we expect in store?

DG: You'll see snowboards, new graphics and style tees, raglans (baseball tees), pullover hoodies, zip hoodies, crew sweatshirts, sweatpants, five panel hats, snapbacks, toques, and facemasks. And it is being released exclusively for the pop-up shop, so you won't be able to get this anywhere else. None of the product will be available online during the pop-up. The stock will be limited so get down there before your size is gone!

Where's the last place you travelled to outside of Canada?

DG: I went was Mexico for a friends wedding recently. I actually married them, but thats another story. It was my second time to Mexico and was a lot of fun, the most memorable experience of the trip was scuba diving.The dive instructor jokingly asked my friend if she wanted to see sharks on the second dive, which she said, "No!" But, the instructor took that as a "Yes!" because before we knew it we were back in the water, and diving down to the sea bed where there were two bull sharks.There is an instant sense of fear being in the water with sharks. But we swam down to the sea bed while these two bull sharks circled us and came within a couple arms lengths away. The whole time knowing that if the shark decided if it wanted to chomp you there wouldn't be anything you could do about it. They didn't though but the rest of the dive I couldn't help but have the wary feeling that they might be behind you. It was a really cool experience especially since we didn't die.

Do you have favourite mountain to board on?

DG: Favourite mountain is hard for me to answer, Mt. Seymour will always be one of my top mountains for a few reasons. I've snowboarded there for years, in high school I used to ride there some nights and weekends. Then once we could drive we would skip class to go, so I have many memories up there.They always have a good park, they know how to build jumps properly and have some innovative set ups, so big props to the park staff for keeping it fun up there. It's local so I can ride in the evenings when its not busy. Don't go there, you wouldn't like it!