Unicorn 182
A snowboard that always keeps its nose out of the snow with a heart of beech and poplar.
I feel snowboarding as a tool to discover nature and feel free, I build elegant boards to slide on the snow, and letting myself be inspired by the nature that surrounds me design innovative shapes and easier to ride in deep snow.
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Born in Turin in 1963. A passionate record collector, she works as a dj for clubs and radio stations and creates some pioneering video art installations. In 1982 he founded New Record, an image and communication company with which he developed videos and animations. At the beginning of the 90s he joined a company that deals with graphics and image processing, experiencing in first person the transition from analog to digital. Understanding the importance of the transformation in progress, he decided to focus on the world of multimedia, which reconciles all his past experiences (design, video, photography and music). In 2001 he founded Ebimedialab, specialized in web design, digital video and motion graphics. In 2011 he founded PLP Custom Snowboards, an innovative snowboard-brand dedicated to the construction of craft snowboards from fresh snow and Carver.
In 1978 Playboy Magazine published some photos of Dimitrije Milovich, a boy who traced wide snow-covered slopes riding a wave-like tool. It was the first snowboard (swallowtail).
At the time Ettore Barabino practiced off-piste skiing and windsurfing, but a board to slide on the snow had never seen. A dear friend, Gian Marco Peri, accompanied him to Jolly Sport in Turin, where I bought a Wintersurf Pin Tail 160 with a central fin in aluminum… he felt like a child on Christmas morning!
There were no shoes dedicated to this new sport, so Ettore took a normal pair of ski boots and pulled out the inner shoe; cut toe and heel and put the shoe inside a pair of tall Timberland, the fashion of those years.
Remember well that day in Sestriere, sunny day and snowy mountains, ready to try that new tool… Despite some falls and wet jeans, he was electrocuted.
That day the love for snowboarding was born!
After the inspiration it was difficult to find someone who had presses so large to print snowboards of that size, and that’s how Paolo Nelzi allowed us to give life to our first prototype built by hand thanks to his workshops of ramps for skateboarding.
We experimented with new shapes with handmade prototypes, produced in small series of 2-3 pieces, without foils and without p-tex, reaching up to 220 cm long and 45 cm wide nose.
For about 5 years we have passed to realize series of 10 snowboard performing in carving as well as off-piste (all mountain), thanks to the use of foils and soles of p-tex.
The realization of such an ambitious project requires great passion, for the mountains, for nature and for this wonderful sport.
“I see snowboarding as a tool for discovering nature and feeling free, designing elegant boards to glide over the snow, and being inspired by the nature around me” – Ettore Barabino
©Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved. Ettore Barabino, with registered office in Str. S.Martino 9 – 10090 Castiglione Torinese (TO) - Italia | VAT 08120580017
©Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved. PLP Custom Snowboards
A table that cannot be missing from your collection!
The imaginative and psychedelic graphics are created by Matteo Zilla of Pulce Design.
