Nathan Rosen.
It takes a couple of minutes looking through the multiple racks of sneakers in his North London bedroom before Nathan Rosen can locate and identify his favourite pair. ‘That,’ he states categorically, ‘is a big question.’ Just before Christmas 2020, Nathan turned 18, throwing into some existential question the veracity of his socials tag, @theyoungnathan. ‘I always feel 13, though,’ he laughs. Nathan is sporting one of the signature stylised, fluorescent crops with which his friend Ivy (‘she’s not a hairdresser – she’s a proper, proper artist’) has helped distinguish him from his fellow Soho streetwear army. Today’s texture is cheetah print, a historical nod to Dennis Rodman.
Eventually, Nathan alights on his prized possession, a pair of Air Max 180s which Nike customised to commemorate the 2009 Dizzee Rascal album Tongue’n’Cheek. One tongue is helpfully branded with the word ‘tongue’, the other ‘cheek’. Only two hundred pairs were made, turning them into instant collector’s items. They look in remarkably good nick and have a current market value of somewhere around £3,000. ‘These have a long story to them,’ he explains. ‘I rocked the hell out of them. They were made for wearing. I didn’t care.’ He has two pairs. One was gifted by a friend working at Palace who knew how much Nathan loved Dizzee. He even managed to get Dizzee to sign them for him after a festival appearance.
At surface level, Nathan Rosen is just a very memorable face and particularly snappy haircut in the multitudinous subset of vibrant London youth who have turned streetwear from something sartorial into something quasi-religious. He has an easy, excitable temperament and a Staffie named Al Capone to whom he is absolutely devoted, a gift to himself for his 18th in lieu of Covid closing down all other avenues of celebration. He works day shifts at Billionaire Boys Club’s Soho flagship.
Nathan says his entry into streetwear was a conjunction of practicality and taste. ‘I was sick of seeing everyone wearing skinny jeans, to be honest,’ he notes. He was 12. ‘That’s kind of where it started.’ Not long after, he dyed his hair for the first time. He was wearing his hair grunge-long at the time and chose a carrot orange shade, a difficult look for a pre-teen to pull off. ‘Me and my friend said that we would both dye each other’s hair,’ he recalls. ‘He ended up doing mine and then his mum came back and didn’t let him do his. So I was stuck with bright orange hair.’ Nathan’s mum went predictably ballistic.
He began shaving his head at 13. ‘That’s when I started bleaching it blond. It was kind of boring, so I thought, just go for it. I did it bright pink, did the blues, the greens – did it all. It’s only in the past year that Ivy had the idea, “OK, let’s do something cool on your hair.” I said, “I trust you, let’s do it.”’ One of the best looks they’ve concocted together is a repeat-print acid house smiley face all over his bonce. ‘Good, eh? She only does my hair. Someone got in touch and offered her a thousand pounds to do his and she said no.’ Nathan pays nothing. It’s a little environmental art experiment they share.
Around the time he began shaving his head, Nathan started having problems at school. ‘Long story,’ he says again, with a shake of his head. ‘I was in a school, didn’t like it, they’d put me in isolation everyday. So I didn’t go into school, because I didn’t see the point of going to sit in a room and not learn anything.’ He tried home schooling, until the allowance ran out. ‘Then I got put into a new school who accepted me, then turned me down and referred me to a Pupil Referral Unit, which is like a prison, pretty much.’
It was at this moment that Nathan found The Basement, the online streetwear forum which had set up physical premises in a Denmark Street cellar, a social space for kids whose shared taste in hooded sweats ran deeper than high-street acquisition. Soho became a kind of refuge for Nathan, schooling himself in his own interests, filling in the gaps the educational establishment couldn’t be bothered to unravel. ‘It was a good outlet, a community. If you needed questions answered or advice on anything, there was always someone there with your common interests who you could just talk about stuff to. It’s boys, girls, not even just young people. There are people who are, like, 50 years old there.’
From The Basement, he scored a job nearby at Patta, the Dutch skate store, where he worked for two years honing his salesmen skills. In his bedroom, a stone’s throw from his precious footwear collection, sits two turntables with Patta slipmats. He bought them, he tells me proudly, with the first two week’s wages from his first proper job.
‘I love it,’ says Nathan Rosen, of his current job at Billionaire Boys Club. It may not last long. His modelling career is starting to take flight – ‘I might even have to get an agent soon.’ In the meantime, he’s happy doing what he’s doing, finding his own pathway through clothes, records, hair, one gangster puppy and a whole lot of life. ‘Retail’s good for me,’ he reckons. ‘I love meeting new people, new faces, chatting shit all day, finding out what we’ve got in common. I feel like people buy when I’m there. I’m a good salesman, you know?’
