For my first article, I want to share the story of a special time in my life, and it’s important to me to pay tribute to it. The challenge will be to recreate, as faithfully as possible, the memory I have of it.
It’s hard to remember exactly when it started, but I think it was in April or May 2021. At that time, I’d been skateboarding for a few months with Pol; we’d started around the same time. Two friends joined us later: Colin, who’d already been skateboarding for a while, and Elliot, who was just starting out. The four of us spent all our afternoons outside skateboarding, and some lunchtimes too; we all went to the same high school, so it was easy for us to get together.
By the way, there was another group of skaters at our school—older ones—and I remember we were pretty in awe of them when we saw them. Since skateboarding had become really popular on TikTok, those guys were pretty popular at school. They shared their clips on an Instagram account, and we thought, “We want that too,” so we did the same. That’s how we created Collectif 95. The goal? To skate, have fun, and make videos of it. From then on, we were even more into it—no questions asked, it was a blast every day!
The guys and I really looked like the archetypal skaters: ripped jeans, sneakers worn down from rubbing against the grip tape, and the laid-back attitude that goes with it. From hanging out all over the place with our boards, we’d ended up gaining a bit of a reputation among the students in our grade. I wouldn’t say we were popular—we were too into our own thing to care what others might be saying about us—but we definitely stood out! There weren’t many other students who carried their boards everywhere they went, or at least who flaunted it so openly, so we certainly stood out a bit.
At lunchtime we’d go to the city skatepark, just a stone’s throw from the high school. Quite a few people followed us—a few other students from our class who were also jumping on the trend. In addition to our little group of beginners, some students would come to the park just to eat, watch us skate, and hang out with us. I remember that after those sessions we’d often show up late to class and always drenched in sweat.
Outside of school, we skated a lot on the streets; we especially liked the “conservatory” spot, located right next to the school itself. It wasn’t particularly interesting—it was just an area with a smooth surface and a structure under a building that could be used as a manual pad or a small gap. Given our skill level, it was more than enough. We also used to skate in little villages that really weren’t meant for it, lol.
Elliot and Colin lived in pretty remote areas, so we’d go skate there to make them happy. I think that was part of the reason why it was so much fun. Since we were skating some crazy spots, we were the only skaters there. We just hung out among ourselves, as if we were the only ones doing it.
After our sessions, we’d regularly go swim in the lake and lounge in the sun. We’d all learned to do front flips off the dock, so we filmed that as the intro to our second “part.” That was the last video we released; we all went on vacation after that. We skated the worst spots; objectively speaking, we weren’t very good, but it didn’t matter. Between skating, trips to the lake, and parties, we were on a roll—it flew by.
Then the vacation ended, and Colin stopped hanging out with us; we never found out why. From then on, it wasn’t the same; we never recaptured the chemistry the four of us had. Soon after, Elliot gave up skating in the months that followed, and Pol sprained his ankle at the skatepark; I kept going on my own. It took Pol several months to recover, and when he did, it wasn’t the same anymore. Time had taken its toll on the group.
But as they say, all good things must come to an end—it wasn’t that dramatic. We stayed very close and kept seeing each other in different ways. Despite everything, those few months remain a pretty magical memory. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think about my teenage years. A group of friends, adventures, carefree days—life wasn’t so serious, and neither were we.