Baglady Supplies founder Tom Delion is the latest legend we spoke to for our “Visuals” interview series. Read on to learn more about his selection and to find out what’s on the cards for Baglady in the coming months…
Words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Tom Delion wearing a new Baglady creation. PH: Rafski
Tom Delion has been a regular at Slam for years, he was visiting our old Neal’s Yard shop before days out exploring the city with his South London crew many moons ago. We’re glad that he is still part of the woodwork. It has been amazing watching him progress to become one of the most interesting skateboarders still actively exploring our capital and what it has to offer. Not only that however, his drive to present and represent his vision has evolved into Baglady, a brand we’re proud to have on the shelf. Knowing that Tom’s eye for aesthetics is keenly honed, and his reverence for what inspires him is tangible, it seemed fitting that we connect via a “Visuals” interview before checking in about what his company has recently brought to the table and have percolating for us right now.
When penning this introduction it seemed appropriate to get some words about Tom from Greg Conroy, another seasoned vet of Slam visitation who spotted Tom’s potential from the get-go and counts himself lucky to be one of his close friends. Greg describes Baglady’s founder as being both “methodical and frenetic, considered but also impulsive”, elaborating that “He will be the first person to dive headfirst into a moshpit in a small Croation town, and also the first to wake up the next morning to round everyone up, working out which spots to hit for the day”. It’s this approach that Greg expressed perfectly for us which keeps Tom’s company evolving and has us excited about the video that will hit our screens shortly.
Tom’s selection of visuals for this article is eclectic and draws from different eras. The video part he gravitated towards is a lesser-spotted Van Wastell compilation that appeared posthumously on a Krooked video, something he appreciates all the intricacies of. He dipped back a further decade when choosing a trick and landed on some Nate Jones gold released when he first started skating, a clip that encapsulates everything he loves about skate videos. The 90s play host to the photo imprinted on his brain, one shot before his time albeit a time he is fondest of in retrospect. This iconic image of Peter Bici is era-defining for many different reasons and Tom articulates them all. To close his choices out he picked a bold Ed Templeton Toy Machine graphic. It turns out that the first board under his feet would be the one that made the biggest mark on his psyche.
It was great hearing Tom go into detail about everything he selected and interesting to learn more about his company, his creative process, the well of inspiration he draws from, and what we can expect to see from himself and the Baglady crew in the not-so-distant future…
Krooked Krook3D – VAN WASTELL extras (2010)
I obviously love all of Van Wastell’s parts, he’s my favourite skater of all time pretty much which is an almost impossible thing to say. There’s just something really special about his style and approach. If you look through his back catalogue of footage from when he started out, he always had that style but was skating rails and doing the more traditional stuff from that time period. Then there was a point where he just slipped into his own lane. Lots of people skate that way now but I feel like he was a real original with his style. He did a lot of simple tricks but would do 180s out of grinds that people wouldn’t normally do, the 50-50 alley oop backside 180s he would do for instance. He had a slightly awkward trick selection or trick style. He could do tricks where if anyone else did it, it would be stinking, but he would always make them look really good.
I really like this specific part made up of extras and released posthumously. The music is him and his brother Eddie [Villa] playing guitar together and the song goes so well with his skating. It’s a super organic representation of his skating too. I’m sure when he was alive and working on specific parts they would have perhaps been more orchestrated and considered in order to be balanced whereas this is a short edit of what I consider to be some of his best footage. It was edited by Benny Maglinao, nothing about it has been overthought, it’s just the rawest form of his skating.
“He always puts his arms really straight to his body when he kickturns around…You can see a second long clip of him doing a fakie kickturn and know who it is immediately”
He has a line in SF at that 3-up-3-down spot which doesn’t look planned at all. He does a backside 5-0-frontside 180-out which is sick followed by a half cab flip. The camera keeps rolling and he turns around before doing a manual roll- kickflip out going the other way, it’s a unique clip. My favourite skate clips always look completely organic. They are always things that look like they’re made up on the spot. Maybe it’s something the skater has considered but there are elements of skating the street that you just can’t plan. The filmer almost has to be a fly-on-the-wall to leave the skater feeling like they’re not being filmed. That way they can skate in the same way as if the filmer wasn’t there. That was definitely the way Van Wastell skated, especially here in his footage. He’s just skating without any thought of how it’s going to be perceived, it’s purely his own shit. I got really obsessed by this idea of the flow state a few years ago, this idea of hitting your flow so that whatever you do is done without you having to think about it. What you are doing then becomes second nature. My favourite skaters are in that zone, they’re just doing it and the camera could be there or not. [Tom] Penny is probably the greatest example of that.
The other thing about Van Wastell’s stuff is that I don’t think he took his skating too seriously which made a big impression on me because loads of the first videos I got were fairly handrail-heavy and serious. Then I discovered this other side of skating that involved more messing around. In this part he does a tre flip to fakie on this bank with a little body varial straight after landing it. If anyone else did that and put it in a video part it would be stinking but he somehow makes it look good. He does a boardslide to fakie on a ledge in his part too which is quite a random clip but also looks amazing.
“When he passed away I started watching that footage over and over again and it became clear just how special he was”
I saw this video quite a bit later on as far as where it fits into my timeline, I started watching it a lot about ten years ago. I watched a lot of 411VM when I was younger from the era when it was on DVD. I also got some from a guy who lived next door to me. He skated and he gave me a load of them on VHS. I feel like Van Wastell was always appearing on those too for a bit, he was in Matix tours or in Vans clips. His name is quite different and memorable so it always stood out for me when he would appear. I had Krooked Khronicles too and I loved his part in that where he skates to the song from Cheech & Chong. His part in that video is sick and it’s weird watching it because he is skating handrails in there but it’s mixed with other stuff that categorises his style. It’s a real mix of different footage and it really interested me because it was someone with the clear ability to be a gnarly rail skater who was doing more interesting stuff too, and was also able to skate transition. Khronicles is a really sick video. I just always loved Van Wastell’s skating. It’s unfortunate that we always begin to really appreciate people after they’re no longer with us. When he passed away I started watching that footage over and over again and it became clear just how special he was.
Van Wastell definitely had a profound effect on me and influenced my skating. One of my current favourites is Mike Anderson because he really took on Van Wastell’s style and approach and took it to the next level. He is still doing really creative, incredible shit that is graceful but also really gnarly. Shout out to Manderson because I feel like he’s taken that way of skating and that style and continued to push it.
Nate Jones – Real Skateboards: Real to Reel (2001)
I love the Gil Scott-Heron song [Gun] in this part and Real to Reel is a great video. I started skating around the time this video came out or a bit later but I didn’t see it when it first came out. The first skate video I saw was This is Skateboarding. I would have seen this REAL video a bit later on. I chose this trick specifically because of the way it was filmed. It’s almost like Nate Jones doesn’t know he is being filmed, he is just cruising down the street. He pops up the kerb and skates around this guy with glasses who is wearing a suit. It almost looks like a skit, like the guy is one of their friends or something, I don’t think he is though. I love how he is the focus of the shot before Nate Jones comes into view. He carves around him, pushes, and kickflips the barrier. It’s like he is on his way somewhere, he comes into frame, does the most banging kickflip and is off, on his way to work or off to bomb a hill or something. That’s the sickest shit in skate videos, long lens lines where the skater never acknowledges the filmer. I obviously love fisheye stuff too but when the skater is just going and the filmer is filming long lens like a fly-on-the-wall it really appeals to me. Dan Wolfe was behind the lens too so no wonder it’s such a good video.
The kickflip itself is really sick and Nate Jones has one of the best styles, really loose and flowy. He is also really tall like Van Wastell too. This was also a great time period for the company right there, there were some more left field skaters riding for them. He is skating in those iPath Grasshoppers too and he makes them look super good. I always wanted some of this as a kid but never got a pair.
The guy Nate Jones goes around in this clip takes no notice of him, he doesn’t even look at him even though he does two ollies behind him. He clocks Nate Jones at first but he’s just stood there watching for traffic before he crosses the road. He doesn’t move out of the way and he doesn’t continue watching while Nate Jones does the kickflip. It shows the disconnect between the two worlds, how when you’re a civilian who knows nothing about skating, the trick, or just cruising down the street are one and the same, they mean nothing. Something can mean nothing to a person in the vicinity but the skater may well have been thinking about nothing but for the last half an hour or whatever. This clip shows two different worlds colliding, it’s a good representation of how we perceive things, this obsession, in contrast to the world around us.
“This clip shows two different worlds colliding, it’s a good representation of how we perceive things, this obsession, in contrast to the world around us”
I also want to mention that in this part he does the best varial flip ever at DWP ledges. He does a simple line- a nosewheelie then a flip 5-0 followed by a varial flip. I’ve always tried to emulate that one he does there, his back foot goes back kind of like you would with an open leg tre flip but he doesn’t go so wide with it. The whole time the board is flipping it’s controlled by the front foot, and he just places it back on perfectly. It’s as graceful as you could ever do that trick. When I was younger it felt like a lot of kids would learn varial flips before tre flips because they didn’t have the power in that back leg yet to spin it round. Varial flips became known as a kind of stinking trick, just something you could do before you could tre flip. Now I think if you can do a good one I’d say it’s worth more than a try flip, this Nate Jones example is one of those. I think when you’re younger there’s this catalogue of tricks you want to learn and your goal is to continue to get more technical. It’s funny, later on in life I’ve returned and gone back. Over the last five years I’ve re-learned heelflips, frontside flips, backside flips, and varial flips. All of these tricks are the basics but in a way are harder to do well, harder than a hardflip or a tre flip or a nollie heel or something. Learning those tricks and doing them as well as you possibly can is that Nate Jones, Van Wastell shit. You don’t need a nollie tre flip in a line, a good varial flip is fine.
Nate Jones didn’t really do too many tricks, he kept it really simple but just did everything amazingly well. He took the basics and did them the best they could be done. It’s funny, he’s one of my favourite skaters, you know his catalogue of tricks, you know what he’s going to do but it never gets old, and it’s always the best shit. I’ve literally picked a clip where he just does a kickflip but it’s still an iconic clip. I personally think that kickflips are the hardest trick to do well. Interestingly, I think with both Nate Jones and Van Wastell, the tricks that are most memorable and say the most about them are probably flatground tricks or a trick down a three-stair versus something huge.
Peter Bici – Ollie in NYC. PH: Dimitry Elyashkevich (1997)
It was really hard to narrow things down to one photo, and this isn’t one that I saw when I was younger. I chose this because it’s an iconic place obviously, there’s this symbolism involved, this symbol of New York City in the background. It’s a bank to bank ollie, a backside ollie transfer which makes the sickest shape for a photo. I think backside tricks are always better visually. The way the photo is shot is incredible, it perfectly encapsulates New York and skating there at this time. Peter Bici is such a great skater from that time and a New York native. I was definitely influenced by East Coast skating. This spot just looks amazing, I always wanted to skate that thing, and I would have loved to have tried to do a backside ollie like that. This is just an undeniable, iconic image and it ended up being published in a Transworld photo issue.
History has made this more poignant, it means more than just a skate photo. I love the colours of this photo. It’s an analogue fisheye shot and it makes the bank look really steep, you can see it is from the footage and I’m sure it wasn’t easy to do. He’s wearing the OG Half Cabs which are possibly the best skate shoe ever and the lighting is amazing. I even like that you’ve got the other camera’s fisheye sticking into the corner of the shot. That shows that nothing back then was too thought out or considered, RB Umali’s camera is there because they’re just out on a filming mission. He’s there as well which is a timestamp because the trick was in Mixtape. R.B is out there filming for the most important skateboarding and hiphop crossover of all time. Mixtape isn’t my favourite ever video but it’s my favourite video to merge those two important cultures. If you like hiphop and you like skating it’s the best thing ever basically.
This photo captures a time period. I was thinking about this and it’s funny. The time period that shaped me was the noughties and the 2010s but I was obsessed with skateboarding from the era this photo was shot in. I was looking at skateboarding from the 90s and everything was a throwback or a homage to that. But right now you’ve got kids and their style and approach is because they’re looking back to the 2010s or the noughties. They’re taking influence from that style and dressing in fake ripped jeans and stuff, Topman 2007 style. Fashion and skateboarding is all cyclical so it makes sense that if I was into the 90s in 2010 then kids in 2025 will be interested in something that happened more recently. For me that will always be surreal because that was a pretty stinking time for skating, hahaha. Skating just looked better at certain times and it goes to show that everything in retrospect is better.
“The time this was shot is probably the most important time for the kind of skating I’m interested in”
The time this was shot is probably the most important time for the kind of skating I’m interested in. That recent Bobby Puleo Epicly Later’d video was sick and I think for people who maybe don’t know so much about that type of skating, time period, and his approach. To see that video will make it all make much more sense. This photo ties into that Bobby Puleo ethos perfectly, it’s just an incredibly tasteful backside ollie and that’s it. It’s about travelling and moving through the street. San Francisco always felt like the anomaly of California, it always felt more East Coast than the schoolyards of LA, the skating did too. So when you see [Bobby] Puleo take on skating in SF it’s about travelling from one place to the other, over a gap, off a kerb cut, onto a cellar door. It’s less about the trick and more about the movement from one place to another, how you do it, and the aesthetics of what you’re seeing behind the skateboarder as well. The little things you capture that are happening concurrently are all part of that, people walking in and out of shot. That all ties back into the Nate Jones clip. I really feel that the East Coast skating style was about movement, using the street, getting from one place to another, and it looking good. That appealed to me more than skating a static bench in one schoolyard. I like the feeling that the camera could shut off and they’d continue skating down the street to the next spot.
I’ve only been to New York once. I went there when I was seventeen and I didn’t skate which sucks. I was on a college trip to look at art. At that time I was still into skating but my interaction with the city involved quite a bit of hiphop tourism I suppose. I visited quite a few famous places that had hiphop relevance. We were staying near Spanish Harlem and I wanted to visit Harlem to see where Big L was from for instance. I really need to go back there.
TOY MACHINE SKATEBOARDS – “MON-STAR” DECK (2001)
“I feel like board graphics are better, or more effective, the simpler they are…”
Toy Machine definitely had a very identifiable vibe back then. I remember really wanting that board and being really stoked on it. That graphic will always be intertwined with how I think about board graphics. The photo of me with that board is when it’s brand new and I’m in Brighton so I have a feeling it was from a skate shop down there but I can’t remember which one. There is also a chance that I ordered it because I would spend hours poring over the mail order ads in skate mags when I was that age. That was when you would call up and place orders over the phone which seems like such a foreign concept now. I was surprised to see this board graphic dated as 2001 and have a feeling maybe I got it a bit later in some kind of sale because we didn’t have a big budget for skate stuff.
“you want something that stands out and represents what the company is about at a glance”
Later on the Blueprint Spray Heart would have been a desirable graphic for my generation and it’s another one I almost picked for this. Looking back though that graphic has aged worse than this one. It was the sickest shit at the time but it’s pretty emo in retrospect and there were some really bad colourways of it. It does show the appeal of the simplest thing though, something you can identify instantly. That’s something I feel has come back around recently, people are really into logos again, bold branding. This Toy Machine board meant that the company became a favourite of mine for a while. My dad is an artist and he was aware of Mark Gonzales and Ed Templeton so he had an interest there, especially in Gonz. I remember seeing Toy Machine graphics and early Krooked graphics and they had that feeling to them where there was obviously an art background behind them. I think that also made them stand out for me a bit.
I would have drawn this Monster logo a lot when I was younger, another obvious one would have been the Spitfire Flamehead or the DC logo. I’m sure in many ways nothing has changed, I’m sure there are kids out there drawing those same images now. I’m pretty sure I still have a sketchbook somewhere where I drew all of those logos and images when I was younger. When I had this board I lived in Blackheath Standard which is near Greenwich and I was literally skating on a little path at the end of my street, probably with an Argos ramp. 
When it comes to the Baglady graphics I have produced some of them are from this school of thought, very graphicy and simple, logo driven boards. Then there are also photo boards. Some of the ones I’ve made have my photos on them and that always feels really sick, thats’s something that’s more for me, something I might put on the wall. I always like those because it combines the two things I love and enjoy doing the most. That’s why I started a company really, to fuse all the things I really love and put them together.
I really like the last board series I did with my friend George Booth-Cole. He’s a photographer and it uses some of his black-and-white photos from LA. It’s a photo collage but he handprinted everything. We then made a rough physical collage to work from, scanned in those prints, and recreated what we made to begin with. These graphics are completely different to the graphic boards I’ve been talking about but they tell more of a story on a skateboard. When we sold those boards we made a little zine to accompany them. I think graphic boards are great when you’re skating, they’re simple, and you just see this flash of colour. These photos boards are almost something more, you take them away and appreciate the photos on them, then if you do want to skate the board then you have a zine you can keep. It crosses the boundaries of a skateboard being used for skateboarding, or a skateboard that is kind of a canvas for something less ephemeral.
Tom Delion peaks a frontside wallride wearing the new Baglady Warp Tech crew. PH: Rafski
We’re stoked to have just received the latest Baglady drop, what are you proudest of executing this season clothing wise?
There is a knitwear piece which we made that incorporates a photo that I shot but it’s a jacquard knit. It’s a photo of a cherub sculpture that was shot against this brick wall. It worked perfectly, the cherub is offset to the side and the brick wall turned into these lines which go across the knit and make it look like it’s striped. The whole graphic isn’t really edited, it’s taken from a photo. 
Did you learn some of the clothing production process while working for Yardsale?
Definitely, I wasn’t really doing any design work over there or anything but just being a part of the production taught me a lot. Before working there I wasn’t really clued up on how you operate a company, I didn’t really understand distribution or any of that stuff. I’m still good friends with Dan [Kreitem] and appreciate everything I learned over there. I absorbed some knowledge about clothing design and the process behind making things. I didn’t go to college for any of the stuff I’m doing, I went to university for photography, everything else I learned on the job. You learn by doing, and learn by failing.
What sponsors have inspired you to create your own stuff?
The Vans Era or Half Cab are products that have always hyped me up, they’re iconic shoes and I’m forever grateful to be wearing them. Those shoes inspire my own skating but in terms of design HUF could be mentioned as an inspiration, if you look at the company and its trajectory. It’s amazing to see where it came from, how Keith Hufnagel started it and his early days of just being a skater and transferring that knowledge into being a business owner. He made a pretty good blueprint of how to do things. That is inspiring, seeing how he turned it into this much bigger operation that’s still running today, even after he passed away.
Are you always looking for inspiration, picking up things you want to make your own?
Yeah constantly, that’s the way my brain works, I’m always seeing stuff, noting it. That feeds back into the photography stuff, making sure you always have a camera on you. We now fortunately always have one as we’re carrying iPhones, there’s always a form of documentation to hand nowadays. I’m always seeing things that interest me, taking photos of them and going from there. I take a lot of inspiration from film, actual movies and things I see in them whether that is style or fashion in different moments. That has had a big impact on Baglady, the videos, and the style.
Have there been any new developments with the company?
There are new stockists and distributors, the stuff is selling over in Australia and in Thailand. It’s been cool being able to reach some other countries. We had some new boards on the way and there are conversations going on about putting some new people on. Hopefully, after the video we’re working on right now comes out, things will open up a bit and we can add people to the team and consider turning some people pro. Following the blueprint of what a board company from the UK is now is different now to how it used to be when I was younger. It’s pretty difficult to make any money from selling boards so it is much more about clothing, and style. There is a slight over saturation with so many companies starting up but I feel like the skate industry is becoming less US-centric and more focused on what’s happening in Europe and the UK which is a good thing.
Tom treats us to a tasteful two-piece filmed by Michael Boardman
Who is the last member of the squad to really surprise you?
Joel Banner just because he has come back from his second life-changing injury. He healed up and didn’t really take it easy at all, he just went straight into filming. We’ve been making this video for about two years at this point, he came in about a year ago and started skating again. He started skating everything switch because he had hurt his knee, it made him skate the other way to compensate when getting back into it. He quickly started just doing switch bangers and slowly worked at it to now where I feel he is back to his full potential. He didn’t hold back, he started fucking shit up with a great approach. He was focused and I guess trying to make up for lost time. It was so sick to see it, him working so hard on this video, and other stuff at the same time. I hope after this video comes out that he gets a bit more recognition and a proper shoe deal because he really deserves it.
Where did the name Baglady come from?
What trips or projects do you have on the cards you’re excited about?
I don’t actually know exactly where we are going to go next. After this video is done I just really want to go somewhere warm and enjoyable. I’d like us to have trip that’s not super high intensity and film a video made up of what went down. We haven’t been on any trips for a while, the focus has been purely on filming in London all the way through the winter. That has been a bit draining but I’m fully inspired by London at the moment, we’ve started getting into sorting out spots. I’ve got a car now so we’ve been rolling up with the crowbar, the lacquer and the bondo. We’ve been making things skateable and I think there are no excuses really. If you put time and effort into spots then what you can do in this city is basically never-ending.
“I think there are no excuses really. If you put time and effort into spots then what you can do in this city is basically never-ending”
I would personally like to work on a part with my friend Jimmy [Silver], maybe something for HUF. I’d like to put out a couple of video parts this year because I’m starting to get older and I’ve got less time at my disposal. I really want to put out some stuff that I’m proud of. With Baglady I just want to go on a fun trip with no pressure and enjoy hanging out with everyone in another country because it’s been a long, cold winter.
Any last words?
Thanks to Slam City Skates and everybody who stocks Baglady. Thank you to everyone who has contributed clips, and to anyone involved who has helped us to make the video you’ll be seeing soon. Peace out.
We would like to thank Tom for taking time out of the filming schedule for this one and look forward to seeing the new video which is coming soon. Be sure to shop with us for the latest from Baglady Supplies, and follow Baglady and Tom Delion for regular updates.
We would like to thank Neil Macdonald ( Science Vs. Life ) for the scan of Peter Bici shot by Dimitry Elyashkevich and taken from the 1997 TWS Photo Issue. We also want to thank Ed Templeton and Nilou Naghdi at Toy Machine for the “Mon-Star” board scan. Big thank you also to Greg Conroy for the intro assist.
Previous Visuals Interviews: Sam Narvaez , Tyler Bledsoe , Daniel Wheatley , Braden Hoban , Jaime Owens , Charlie Munro , Lev Tanju , Jack Curtin , Ted Barrow , Dave Mackey , Jack Brooks , Korahn Gayle , Will Miles , Kevin Marks , Joe Gavin , Chewy Cannon