Lords of fashion

Long the duds of skateboarding dudes, deck shoes, low-hanging dark jeans and solid-color T-shirts rolled into mainstream attire. Now skaters are guarding their fashion turf more fiercely than ever.

By Karen Sommer Shalett
New Orleans Times-Picayune

When costumer designer Cindy Evans began work on "Lords of Dogtown," a fictionalized movie account of the real Zephyr skateboard team in the 1970s, she papered her workspace walls with photographs from the era, including those from Venice Beach high school yearbooks.

"Authenticity was the most important factor," Evans said. "We aged all of the clothes, because kids who don't have money wear the same things over and over again.

"The Vans (deck shoes) had to be bent in the back and the jeans' back pocket had to be falling off, because skateboarders slide and rip them. And they couldn't be dirty enough because the kids were always in the street."

Evans and director Catherine Hardwicke knew that the costumes for the tale of three poor kids finding an identity and fame through skateboarding would be watched closely for accuracy by the audience the movie was meant to target: skateboarders themselves.

Beyond a sport, skateboarding is a subculture with its own vernacular, cultural norms and even uniforms. While the act of skating is central to this tribe, style has become an important byproduct.

Legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk described the look in an e-mail interview as low-hanging dark blue or black jeans paired with a fitted T-shirt or solid-colored button-up shirt and skate shoes. The baggy, oversized clothing comes from the need to have room to do tricks such as ollies, grinds and kick flips.

In "Dogtown," skater Tony Alva is portrayed outfitted in '70s glam looks, Stacy Peralto in athletic gear and Jay Adams in punk and VATO-inspired clothing. While the current trends in skateboarding attire don't directly reflect these styles, Hawk says that each of the three looks played a role in the evolution of what skaters wear now.

With a strong street sensibility, skaters often find themselves "discovering" trends, Hawk says. Originally a confluence of surf and punk styles and later assimilating those from hip-hop, the evolving look may have been born in function, but it has spread to runway fashion and, in turn, mainstream attire.

"As skateboarding got more recognized, the culture and the fashion surrounding it gained acceptance and appreciation," Hawk said. "Things have exploded in recent years."

Button-up cowboy yoke shirts, like the ones Heath Ledger wears as Zephyr co-founder Skip Engblom in the film, and the "old man" button-up shirt Hawk described are both fashion standbys of earlier eras that have made comebacks, first in skate culture and then fashion culture, in the past several years.

"A lot of skaters are poor," said Paul Lapin, manager of the New Orleans Board Shop, who grew up on the West Coast during skateboarding's second peak in the late 1980s and early '90s. "We didn't have money so we'd go to vintage stores to get the coolest shirts we could find for $2."

Lapin notes that trucker hats had their origination with skaters who needed plastic mesh head gear that breathed, but couldn't pay more than low vintage store or truck stop prices. Dirty denim is another trend he and other skaters believe to have its roots in the street culture of skaters, who are constantly falling into dust, dirt and oil spills.

"If you look at catalogs, the clothes now are already worn out before you get them," Lapin said. "I'm just waiting for the T-shirt to come with the sweat stains already under the armpits."

Other skaters feel as though the style is such a part of the culture that it is somehow spoiled for them when the mainstream appropriates it.

The wearing of vintage Pumas and Adidas is said to have come about as a backlash to non-skaters wearing skate shoes from companies such as Vision and Airwalk. The sneaker companies saw the rising popularity and re-released the classic styles as new, first giving them a cutting-edge quality and eventually making them mainstream.

In his book "Skateboarding Is Not a Crime: 50 Years of Street Culture" (Firefly Books, 2004), James Davis writes that while "skateboarders have often found themselves at the forefront of street fashion . . . (they) often resent this unwanted attention, and prefer not to have the clothes they wear for skating constantly labeled as the next big thing."

In part, the attitude Davis describes exists to keep everything about the sport pure and individualistic, since many skaters feel that all of skateboarding is personal expression, from the moves to the clothes. Words such as "poser" are often used to describe people who wear the look but don't skate the board.

"Skateboarders hold skateboarding to the heart," said Mike Lewis, assistant manager at the New Orleans Board Shop and a skater for 11 years. "Some kids feel they don't want outside people to start invading their territory, messing with what they love. That is true of the fashion associated with it as well."

And now that even Hawk's clothing line will be sold exclusively through mainstream retail outlet Kohl's come spring of 2006, skaters are having to hold their ground even more.

"Skateboarding is very local," Lewis said. "You support locally owned shops that have very specific stock. That is how you distinguish your look from non-skaters'."

Mainstream sport companies such as Nike and Reebok, as well as niche skateboarding companies, have taken note and distribute certain product lines only to skateboard shops rather than major athletics stores.

Lapin sees the attention from the mainstream as a good thing. Having worked for eight different skateboard and apparel brands and two skateboard retailers, he believes that outside interest in the sport has brought money to the field.

"I'm excited that everyone can have jobs in the industry," Lapin said. "And how about the people who just simply appreciate what we do?

"Whoever said skate videos could only be watched by skaters? People watch and want to emulate us somehow, but say, 'Man, I could never do that.' That's respect."