Julia Roberts had a Julia Roberts Thrasher Magazine moment in New York this week, stopping by her local newsstand in a breezy all-black boho look that ended with a skateboarding monthly tucked under her arm. Say what you like about physical media being finished: Roberts is apparently unconvinced.
The Outfit: Posse Blouse, Birkenstocks, and Bronze Headphones
Roberts built the look around a billowy blouse from Posse, the Australian-designed label with a boutique on Bleecker Street in the West Village, paired with balloon trousers featuring pleats down the leg and a cinch at the ankle. All black, head to toe, which is one way to keep things simple in the summer heat.
The accessories are where it got interesting. A black watch and Jacques Marie Mage sunglasses (each frame passes through roughly 300 manufacturing steps and an 18-month production process in Japan and Italy) provided the quieter notes. Bronze over-the-ear headphones and silver Birkenstock Gizeh sandals delivered the colour, and a beige tote rounded out the ensemble.
The headphones are the bit worth clocking. Large, bronze, worn in daylight on a newsstand run: not the most invisible accessory ever chosen. It gives the whole look a slightly off-duty-DJ energy that sits a little awkwardly against the floaty blouse, but somehow works.
Julia Roberts, Thrasher Magazine Issue 553, and a Cover Trick Above a Basketball Hoop
The reading material, though, is the real talking point. Roberts was photographed with a copy of Thrasher Magazine’s August 2026 issue, number 553 in the magazine’s run, which puts skater Tom Karangelov on the cover mid-nosegrind on a basketball hoop.
According to Thrasher Magazine, that cover shot is specifically a roof-gap nosegrind, photographed by Jake Darwen. The same issue features content from what Thrasher describes as the Rod Father’s five greats, Santa Cruz in Guadalajara, the next generation of Etnies, and an inside look at Karangelov and Spanky’s upcoming shared part. It is a proper skate magazine, not a casual lifestyle title with a board on the cover for aesthetic purposes.
Is Roberts a secret skate obsessive? Possibly. Does she have kids who might have asked her to grab a copy? Also possible, and arguably the more statistically likely explanation. Either way, a copy of Thrasher tucked into a beige tote while wearing a Posse blouse is a certain kind of move, even if it was entirely accidental.
The tension between the look and the magazine is genuinely fun. Boho summer dressing, Jacques Marie Mage frames, floaty black trousers: all of that reads calm, considered, slightly European. Thrasher, whose tagline is Skate and Destroy, is none of those things. The cover image of Karangelov balanced in a nosegrind above a basketball hoop is the opposite of calm.
Intentional style contrast or happy accident, it is the kind of detail that makes a street-style photograph worth a second look. A copy of, say, Town and Country would have been invisible. An issue of the world’s most recognisable skate magazine, photographed perfectly, is not.
Roberts’s next public appearance will tell us whether the Birkenstock Gizehs are a recurring choice or a one-off. The Thrasher subscription question, however, remains open.
