Daphne Greca is the 26-year-old skater and founder of London-based skate shop Brixton’s Baddest. Born and raised in Athens, Greece, she moved to London at 17 to study Photography until around the time of graduation, she discovered a love for the sport that 360 flipped her life around - skateboarding. Moving near her local skate park meant her newfound hobby could be enjoyed whenever the whim arose and in noticing the lack of core skate shops in the area, Brixton’s Baddest was born: “With skateboarding rapidly growing and more multinational corporations getting involved it is important to keep the business side of things as skater-owned as possible. I also feel that more people should focus on their local communities, it’s a good way to change our world”, she says. Discover five senses from Daphne’s world.
My love for skating developed in the very late stages of my adolescence.
At the time, I was living in Soho in London. A friend of mine was skating and one day I just got on her board and it just felt so fun - the burst-out-laughing kind of fun. Starting skating in your early 20s is very liberating as you don’t have to take things step by step, it’s just about enjoying yourself. This experience gave me a real sense of freedom.
I feel a range of emotions while skating.
Skateboarding is meditation really - you have to focus on the here and now while emptying your brain at the same time. There is no pressure with it when you expect nothing from it, it’s almost like an altruistic kind of love. It allows you to go through the process of getting over something that makes you angry or something that has caused you pain.
The sound of waves crashing into the beach reminds me of my childhood.
I feel blessed to have grown up by the Aegean Sea which is between the Greek and Anatolian peninsulas. Looking at the infinite blueness of it and the endless force that it produces gives you a sense of everything being eternal and inevitable, with no future or past.
Femininity for me is power, it is the art of seduction and the only divine connection between humanity and nature.
Growing up and becoming a woman can be an amazing journey, especially if you are lucky enough to live in a part of the world where whoever identifies as female has basic human rights.
Karthea, a small beach in the island of Kea, is a place in the world very close to my heart.
It has an ancient theatre, two ancient temples and a small Christian church. It’s only accessible by an hour long path built around 1200 BC with big marble stones smoothened by the centuries. Past, present and future merge into one, the energy of this place is undeniable.