The Shoes

Vans Old Skools are the standard answer on availability alone. Flat sole, suede panels at the wear points, stocked everywhere, easy to replace at short notice.

Flat, because a running sole rocks on a board. Suede, for the abrasion it outlasts canvas under, and for taking glue when it finally goes. The reinforced patch on the inner toe is doing a job: grip tape is sandpaper, and every ollie drags the same square inch across it.

Vulcanised or cupsole. Vulcanised means the sole is heat-bonded straight to the upper. Thin, flexible from new, and the board comes through it. The strip of rubber running level round the shoe is foxing tape, visible on the shelf without picking the shoe up. A cupsole has a moulded sole cemented on. More material sits between foot and board. Better off a set of stairs, worse for flicking.

Street leans vulcanised, transition leans cupsole. Buying one pair for everything, buy vulcanised. It suits five of the six versions above, the work pant being the exception.

They are a consumable. Shoe lifespan data puts skate shoes at two to six months. Skating three times a week means a new pair every two. One retailer puts the working number at sixty hours. Six hours a week works out at ten weeks. Shoe Goo buys back about thirty of those hours. Even the grip tape changes the number, with Mob eating shoes faster than Jessup.

At fifty to eighty dollars a pair, six hours a week costs three to four hundred a year in shoes alone. The rest of the outfit gets bought to match that.

Sizing runs small. DC and DVS models sit half a size to a full size under a Nike or an Adidas. Suede stretches with wear where canvas does not. Buy it snug and let it mould.

The insole is the cheapest upgrade there is. Most skate shoes ship with something thin. A vulcanised shoe has almost nothing between heel and pavement. Twenty dollars changes how long you can stand on concrete.

Colour decides how the shoe ages. New, they all look fine. White leather greys at the creases within a month and never comes back. Black suede hides everything. That is why most people default to it. Gum soles yellow. Most people want that. White rubber soles go grey. That is the one to avoid on a first pair. Navy, burgundy and forest green sit between the two and stay presentable longest.

High tops are a separate argument. They protect the ankle bone, the joint that gets hit most. They also add weight and take longer to break in. The Sk8-Hi and the Half Cab exist for that reason. Skaters kept rolling ankles in low tops. If you are only wearing them, low tops are easier to live with. A high top interrupts the line where the trouser lands.

The Trousers

A kickflip brings the knee toward the chest and the front leg through a full rotation. A narrow trouser stops both.

Regular denim on a building site lasts about a week: knees blow, crotch seam unravels, belt loops tear off. Skateboarding hits the same places in the same order, so skaters took work trousers off the shelf and never went back.

Room also matters on landing. The knee needs its full travel and the fabric needs somewhere to go when you slide. A tight leg puts the whole impact into the seam.

The nineties pushed this to leg openings wide enough that the fabric moved independently of the leg.

Four construction details separate a trouser built for this from one cut to look like it. Three of them are invisible from the outside.

Tees and Hoodies

Knit weight is measured in grams per square metre.

A supermarket tee is 130 to 150 GSM. Heavyweight starts at 180. Most decent streetwear sits between 200 and 260. Past 260 is rugby weight. Buy at the upper end. The fabric has to carry a print and survive being landed on.

Side seams. A cheap tee is knitted as a tube with no side seams. It spirals in the wash until the seam sits near your ribs. A panelled tee holds its line.

The collar. First thing to fail on any tee. A ribbed band with double-needle stitching and tape running shoulder to shoulder holds. A single-needle folded hem rolls and sags, faster on heavy fabric.

The current cut drops the shoulder seam an inch or two past your shoulder and runs boxy. Heavy fabric holds that shape. A light one collapses into it and reads as a shirt that is simply too big.

Indigo, black, washed grey, ecru, olive, brown. Two plain items and one graphic is the working ratio, and washed shades sit better than saturated ones here. A new pair of jet black trousers looks different from the same pair after twenty washes, and the second is what this wants.

Six Ways to Put It Together

The Basic Version

Wide-leg denim or a work pant, a low suede shoe, a heavyweight tee in one colour.

The wide leg over a flat sole gives one long line from hip to floor. A plain tee keeps the top half out of the way.

The hem should sit on the shoe and stack slightly. Any longer and it drags under the heel. Trousers go there first.

A white or gum sole works here. With everything above it quiet, the contrast at the floor gives the outfit somewhere to end.

One volume, one clean line. If the tee is also oversized you have two loose pieces and no shape between them.

With Work Trousers

Dickies and Carhartt got into skateboarding by being cheap and hard to destroy. Venue Skateboards calls it an unmatched durability to cost ratio.

Canvas holds a crease where washed denim slumps, and the leg keeps its shape all day.

The double knee version has an extra panel of fabric across each knee. Dickies built a whole skateboarding line around it, and Vans put it on the V96 Rowan Zorilla. That second layer is there for the knee, the part that hits the ground.

Sizing on work pants runs differently from denim. Dickies and Carhartt are cut for someone who squats all day. The seat and thigh come generous. The waist runs true. Buy your true waist and the volume arrives on its own.

A cupsole shoe suits this better than a vulcanised one. Canvas is already structured, and a thin sole under a stiff trouser leaves the outfit looking top-heavy.

Olive or brown canvas with a plain tee reads as clothes and gets this version through a workplace. It takes a jacket over the top without adjustment.

Canvas holds its own shape instead of draping off the shoulders. Broad frames get the most out of it.

Flannel Worn Open

An open flannel over the tee takes this into autumn.

It breaks the torso into three vertical panels, and a wide bottom half stops reading as one rectangle. Cotton flannel scuffs where a thinner weave tears.

Wear it open and long. Buttoned up it becomes a shirt and the outfit changes.

The flannel should reach past the hip, ideally to the point where a hand hangs. Anything shorter sits at the widest part of the body and cuts you in half.

Pick a check with two colours in it at most. A busy tartan over a graphic tee gives you two things fighting for the same job.

Hoodie, Shorts, Long Socks

Summer, and the one that turns up in most skate footage.

A heavy hoodie over shorts is the most common combination at a park, where the temperature swings between standing around and going flat out. The hoodie comes off and goes round the waist. A thin fleece gives itself away there. Long socks fill the gap between hem and shoe.

Shorts want to hit at or just below the knee. Above that and they ride up on every squat.

Two or three inches of leg between the short hem and the sock is the gap that reads correct. A bare thigh reads as sportswear and a sock pulled to the knee reads as a uniform.

This one rewards height. On a shorter leg the double break at knee and ankle eats most of the visible leg.

All Black

Black work pant, black tee, black low top, no graphics.

With the colour gone only the shapes are left. This is the version that goes into a bar or an office with a loose dress code.

Black suede also hides wear better than any other colour. This version stays presentable longest.

Texture carries it. The colour has been taken out. A canvas trouser against a heavy cotton tee against suede gives three different surfaces in the same black, and that is what stops it looking like a uniform.

Keep the sole dark here. A white sole under all black splits the outfit in two at the ankle.

This one works on the widest range of frames. Black removes the volume that the wide leg adds back.

The Big Graphic Tee

A large logo or artwork across the chest, worn oversized, usually with the wide leg.

Skate graphics go back to the Powell-Peralta and Vision decks of the eighties, when boards were treated as canvases.

A large print pulls attention to the chest and balances a heavy bottom half. Keep the trousers plain.

Prints crack. A cracked one on a shirt washed two hundred times is what people go looking for.

One graphic per outfit. A printed tee under a printed hoodie with a logo cap is three things asking for the same attention.

The print should sit high on the chest. Centred on the stomach it drops the weight. A low graphic on an oversized body drops the visual weight to the waist. The waist is already the heaviest part of this.

On a broad chest a full-width graphic adds width you already have, and a smaller left-chest print does the same job without it.

Socks, Belt, Cap, Bag

SocksCrew height. They cover the ankle bone, stay put in a shoe being twisted all session, and show above a low top. Heel, toe and cuff go in that order. A nylon or polyester blend outlasts pure cotton at every one of them.

BeltTrousers this wide will not stay up on their own. A woven web belt with a flat clip. A heavy metal buckle is something you land on.

CapsA five-panel or low-profile six-panel sits flatter under a helmet and stays on at speed.

BackpackStraps let out full length. The bag rides low. Vans calls this the distinctive skate way of wearing one. A bag sitting high on the shoulders moves every time you do.

Sizing for Different Body Types

Average. Dickies size by waist position rather than by body. Their own chart says buy your usual number if you wear them high on the waist, two sizes up for mid, and four sizes up if you wear them low on the hips. Slam City fits a six-foot model in 32x32 across the range.

Tall. Check the inseam before the waist. Look for brands that grade length separately from waist size. If a boxy tee leaves a gap at the hem, go up a body length or put a flannel over it.

Short. Get the trousers shortened. A high-rise buys back more here than anything else.

Broad. Take a less dropped shoulder on the tee. An open flannel over the top narrows the middle.

Slim. Buy the wide leg as cut, no adjustment. Keep the tee to one size up rather than two.

Narrow through the hips and shoulders. Buy a men's size down. Men's grading runs generous through the seat and thigh. A size down gives the wide leg with a waist that fits. Take the waistband in at a tailor rather than hunting for a women's version cut narrow to sell. On tees, a size down plus a cropped body.

Shoes are the easy part on any frame. Most skate brands run unisex sizing with a conversion on the box, and Vans, Emerica and New Balance Numeric all cut in the smaller range as standard.

The look was never gendered internally. It was gendered by what the shops chose to stock.

How to Read Wear Marks on Skate Shoes

Skate shops read a shoe the way a mechanic reads tyre wear.

Trousers follow the same logic. Knees go first, then the crotch seam, then the hem under the heel.

Every piece of this was designed around damage. A head-to-toe new outfit sits wrong. One item that has been through a wash settles the rest down.

Grip tape is what makes it happen this fast. Aluminium oxide on a backing, the same abrasive as sandpaper, bonded to the surface the shoe rubs against all day.

Which Brands to Look At

Vans, Dickies and Carhartt are the names that come up first. Looking at what the specialists do with the same garment tells you what to look for.

Polar Skate Co out of Sweden and Dime out of Montreal both build trousers around a big leg with a proper gusset. Both brought the wide fit back. Butter Goods from Perth sits in similar territory with more graphic work. Quasi and Alltimers are the American equivalents.

Last Resort AB makes shoes. The VM001 is the clearest example of a vulcanised sole with visible foxing tape.

Emerica, Etnies, éS and New Balance Numeric all cost about the same as Vans and tend to last longer. Levi's runs a Levi's Skateboarding line that rebuilds its own patterns in heavier fabric.

All of them share the same construction: a real gusset, a heavy fabric, reinforcement at the failure points. Buy against that spec whoever makes it.

What to Buy First, and What It Costs

Two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty for a working set. A flannel and a second pair of trousers takes that to a wardrobe running a full year without anything else.

Where It Came From, and Who Wears It Now

Alan Gelfand landed the first ollie in 1978, and everything above follows from it. Before that a skate shoe was a plimsoll. After it there was a drag zone along the toe and side that needed suede, reinforcement and a rubber compound that could survive being sanded. Thrasher started publishing in 1981. Supreme opened in New York in 1994 with the clothing racks pushed against the walls, leaving the floor clear for skaters to ride inside the shop.

Most of the people wearing this do not skate, and the clothes work regardless.

A flat suede low top is a good shoe on its own terms. Skate brands make some of the best value footwear there is.

The graphic tee is the piece to be careful with. Thrasher's flame logo went mainstream in the nineties, and the argument about it inside skateboarding has run ever since. Unworn skate shoes with a brand-new Thrasher shirt is the combination that gets noticed. Wear the shoes for six months first.

A gusset and a double knee are what separates a forty dollar trouser from a ninety dollar one.

Through the Year, and Keeping It Alive

Common Questions