Danny Kass’ Grenade Streetwear Collection Provides An Incendiary Crossover from Snowboarding with Explosive Motifs, Hexagons, and Silk-Lined Boxing Hoodies

All Photos by Tom Wallace Yellow silk-lined hoodie by Grenade

Just as we were about to profile Grenade Gloves new streetwear collection which debuted at S.L.A.T.E. during Magic last month, the owner, former Olympic silver medalist Danny Kass, goes and wins his 5th gold in the halfpipe at U.S. Open of Snowboarding last week at Stratton, VT. This will significantly bump up his cred-factor when it comes to his new collection, which we found very interesting without the Kass-factor anyway.

However it’s undeniable that Danny, who’s known to have an authentic street attitude, has seeped some of his savvy vibe into his streetwear collection. The guy started with making gloves, but the hype of his brand and their technical features meant expansion into a complete outerwear line for guys and girls, and now into streetwear including hoodies, peacoats, T-shirts, caps, and sneakers. Yes, sneakers.

According to Grenade director Joseph Condorelli, who we interviewed at S.L.A.T.E., it made sense that Danny’s street collection reflects his snowboarding outerwear. “Danny is an icon in snowboarding and is a hardworking pro athlete. But everyday, he lives and works in street culture -that’s part of snowboarding culture. We’ve had many brands wanting to collaborate from streetwear and we thought that once the gloves had hit a saturation point in snow apparel it was time to turn our attention to a streetwear collection.”

Grenade Gloves–colorful graphics and technical features work well for street-savvy snowboarders

The collection features the typical grenade motifs -either in oversized prints or smaller, multi-prints, plus collages of tanks, explosives, and skeletons. Two of the best pieces include a yellow, silk lined hoodie, reminiscent of boxing warm-ups, and a peacoat with an angled cut at the bottom. The sneakers come in graphics that are either yellow, blue, or black with grenade logos, leather, suede, or canvas uppers and skate-like padded collars and tongues.

What’s interesting about Grenade is that it also taps into the current trends of military motifs, green and brown camo patterns, explosives, and grenade hexagon patterns, which works well in terms of graphics, while at the same time, reflecting the current economic and wartime frustration of a new generation. Not many pro snowboarders or snowboarding brands have been able to successfully crossover from outerwear to streetwear (even Burton struggles with this), but the Grenade line, founded by an authentic street/snow pro, combined with iconic graphics, colors, and attitude, are ahead of the game.