40mcube
34, rue de l’Alma
35000 Rennes

In 2000, Grégory Gicquel and Daniel Dewar opened 2000 VOYAGES, at first glance an apparently normal travel agency, but whose catalogues offer public trips to banal locations in Rennes: a trip in the car to the gas station, jogging to a public garden, bus trips to the university, etc…

During the summer of 2001, they transformed 40mcube into a skateshop, a shop specifically designed to sell skateboard equipment (decks, trucks and wheels) and streetwear such as baggy jeans, t-shirts and shoes. The shop was called the Alma Skateshop. Street communication and regular opening hours allowed the public to realistically enter the commercial landscape of the rue de l’Alma (location of a Rennes mall).

What makes the skateshop stand out is the fact that all items for sale are made by hand by the artists, using precise industrial techniques: laminated 7-ply ashwood pressed at 6 tons in the case of the skateboard decks, trucks in sized cast aluminium, rubber Vulkoran 90 KOR wheels (cast and milled), self-designed and handsewn clothes, etc… All with a sober finish, devoid of superfluous decoration.

A Rennes skater named Sébouille is sponsored by the Alma Skateshop. He wears the skatewear and skates in prominent spots in Rennes and in competitions while using the Alma skateboards.

Prices:
Skateboard Decks: 1400 F- Skateboard Trucks (2): 1100 F- Wheels (4) 750 F- Jeans: 850 F
– T-shirts: 250 F.

For the opening, a skateboard demonstration took place on the esplanade on the south side of the SNCF trainstation, on ramps installed by The Edge (Rennes skatepark manufacturer).