Over the past few decades, skateboarding has become a real cultural phenomenon. In 2016, everyone was wearing Thrasher hoodies, and the boom on the iconic Vans Old Skool has been going on for years.
Luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton collaborate with Supreme, and Hermès produces its own line of decks. In 60 years skateboarding has evolved from a local subculture into a real mainstream (this year, by the way, skateboarding is included in the Olympics for the first time). How did this happen? Let us look into it.
The history of .
This subculture emerged in the 1960s in California and was directly linked to surfing. Then young people came up with the so-called "sidewalk surfing", attaching wheels to their boards. The first public attention to the sport began to appear in May 1965, when Life magazine put skateboarding queen Patti McGee on the cover.
By the way, until the 70s most skaters skated without shoes at all. It wasn't until the seventies that the first brands began to appear, which began to produce special shoes for members of the subculture.
In that decade, skateboarding's popularity skyrocketed. Dewatered pools, drainage pipes, and paved schoolyards quickly became the most popular spots for young people. That's when the skaters' signature style began to take shape: oversize T-shirts, shorts, high socks, and, of course, sneakers.
By the 1990s, the subculture had migrated to the streets of cities, and skaters began to use any suitable surface for tricks. This was largely thanks to Natas Kaupas, who showed the world that it was possible to skate on curbs, benches, and even fire hydrants.
Since then, the skateboarding boom has continued unabated, and every city in the world has skate parks and entire communities of kids who are passionate about this culture.
For those who especially want to immerse themselves in the atmosphere, we suggest watching the movies "Kings of Dogtown" and "Mid-90s.
The emergence of iconic brands
Over the 60 years of the subculture's existence, many brands have emerged. Until now, the most favorite brands of young people are skater brands: Supreme, Thrasher, Stüssy, Vans, Palace, HUF, Volcom, Dime, Polar Skate Co. and many others.
One of the pioneers on the market was the company Vans (which appeared back in 1966). In 1976, the creators turned to the legendary skaters Stacy Peralta and Tony Alva (it was about them that the movie "Kings of Dogtown" was shot) and proposed to develop a new model. That's how Vans Era appeared.
By the mid-'70s skateboarding had become really commercially attractive to companies that initially had nothing to do with the culture. For example, in the 1980s, the Bones Brigade became one of the first skate teams whose members made big money from their names.
In the 1980s, there was another legendary skater, Tony Hawk, who attracted public attention with his tricks. Thanks in part to him, the movement became mainstream and interested sponsors. Tony began to appear more and more often in T-shirts with brand logos. Very quickly everyone wanted one, and companies started stamping them.
The Stüssy brand, which was originally created for surfers, was also adopted by skaters and soon became associated with them.
A truly enormous contribution to the popularization of skater style was made by Supreme. The cult street brand appeared in 1994 and initially was just a skate shop. Among the first items were ordinary T-shirts and sweatshirts with the logo.
It all looked very simple, but that made it even more attractive. By the way, in 1995 American Vogue compared the interior of the Supreme store to Chanel - so different from the classic skate shops.
In the noughties there were loud collaborations with Nike, Fila, A.P.C., Bape, The North Face, Undercover, Neighborhood and even Comme des Garçons. And in 2017, perhaps one of the most high-profile collaborations of the decade was released - Supreme x Louis Vuitton. The collection sold out in minutes.
Skater brands have become the real engines of culture, and even sports giants like Nike and Adidas "got on board" by launching their own line. Many skaters, by the way, are also launching their own brands, such as Blondie McCoy's Thames, Tolya Titayev's Dawn with Gosha Rubchinskiy and Alex Olson's Call me 917.
Skateboarding as an integral part of the fashion industry.
Fifteen years ago it was hard to believe that skateboarding brands would go beyond the subculture and would start making loud collaborations with luxury heavyweights like Dior, Louis Vuitton or Saint Laurent, and that the so-called ragamuffins and hooligans would star in the advertising campaigns of fashion houses and become world-class models.
The legendary skater Dylan Reeder was the face of the DKNY advertising campaign, Blondie McCoy was the face of Burberry, and Evan Mock participated in Alyx and Louis Vuitton shows. Reeder, by the way, had a lot of influence in changing the image of skateboarders. He was one of the first to replace oversize clothes with tight pants and a tucked-in T-shirt.
The fashion industry had a big impact on the popularization of the subculture. In 2011 in the advertising campaign of Celine models posed with skateboards in their hands, in 2016 Hermès released a video where two girls rolled in a pool to promote the brand's new scarves, in the same year the creative director of Dior Chris van Asch used skater ramps as a decoration for the show.
Skateboarding has long gone beyond a subculture and just a sport, it is a large-scale phenomenon that has had a strong influence on the entire fashion industry. Those who have nothing to do with skateboarding and do not know what a "flip", "ollie" and "ramp" are racing around town in fashionable hoodies Palace and sneakers Vans Old Skool. Whether that's good or bad is not for us to judge. It was, it is, and it will be.
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