Last summer the Vienna's Freedom Skateshop team packed their bags and jumped on a train to Budapest. Despite (or maybe because of) only having a few days they did not hold back and spared themselves no challenge, resulting in many bloody elbows and questionaly bent shoulders, but also a very decent amount of great footy! Eversince the trip a lot has changed, watch the clip and get an update on the future of Vienna's last core skateshop below!
Featuring Gabs Schmid, Livio Tomassetti, Luci Jankoschek, Leonie Huber, Serafin Walch, Max Rumpeltes, Lukas Krobath, Marlene Mitterndorfer & Markus Ostermann.
Filmed by Tobi Stummer
Edit by Lucas Jankoschek
Colorgrading Danny Wright.
A few months after the trip Markus Ostermann, owner of Freedom Skateshop has announced that he will be closing down the shop. In the current environment, this unfortunately doesn't come as a big surprise. With Stilladen, Vienna's only other independently owned skateshop also having to close, it was looking like the city would be left without a core shop. In his Instagram post Markus mentioned being open to handing over the reigns to someone else, and that's where two young germans spontaneously found their calling! With the shop officially opening after tons of paperwork, we swung by to ask about Freedom's future!
New owners Fabio & Luca Monnerjan with founder Markus Ostermann.
According to Markus, it was a multitude of reason that finally made him close the shop, many of them personal. An old injury that kept him from skating the past couple years, a feeling of disconnect running a business, but not being able to participate like he used to. The ever growing work load of being a business owner, rising cost of logisitics especially since corona, but also becoming a dad and wanting to be available to his family, both physically and mentally. Eventhough times are though, Markus has been sticking to the core more then other skateshops that expanded their product line up beyond skate brands to get more people through the doors. "The core will always be there", Markus says, and relying on that has held the business at a small, yet steady incline compared to others.
When announcing the closing of the shop via Instagram, he left the door open for the possibility of someone taking over, and one saturday, two brothers from Germany who recently moved to Vienna walked into the shop.
Luca and Fabio in the midst of their empty canvas.
With Markus blessing, all the brand connections and wisdom are transfered over to the Monnerjan brothers. "We want to overhaul the shop space a little bit, but we also want to continue mostly as it was. It is an honour for us to be taking over from Markus.", says Fabio.
With backgrounds in eCommerce and graphic design, the two are set up seemingly perfect to set the shop up for it's new era while keeping things real. The two never really had a plan to open a shop, but the opportunity presented itself shortly after moving to Vienna.
“In the beginning we were a bit afraid that maybe people take issue with us coming in and taking over Freedom since we are technically outsiders, but so far it has been nothing but supportive from everyone!”
For now, the two will be running the shop mostly by themselves, serving customers, fulfilling orders and office tasks while working on the socials and continuing the Freedom brand with new graphics for boards and tee's. "We're especially excited to continue with the Freedom brand. We're getting a print machine for boards, so we can print on our own blanks and release graphics more often." Socials are also obviously a topic that needs to be attended to nowadays. "We have to think of a strategy and maybe get together with the team to see how often and what we can post to get some core skate content going, and we also want to try and organize more events in the future."
Scheming the next business moves.
The store has been open for a few weeks now, with the official opening party coming up this saturday. Support your local!
