The Sneakers That Defined Skateboarding

Skateboarding is a unique sport, in that it has no formal rules, professional league, dress code, or equipment. All you really need is the skateboard itself and a pair of shoes. Well, some type of clothing is also recommended, but let’s get back to the shoes. Like most other sports, skateboarding does have footwear designed specifically for it, which has been perfected throughout the years as both the sport itself and footwear technology progress. You can skate in just about any rubber-soled shoe, but you’ll have mixed results – a pair of Vans is going to be more ideal on the board than a pair of Foamposites. A great performance skate shoe has to be durable and protective enough for both the shoe and the wearer to withstand the ollies, flip tricks, and massive drops imposed on them, yet flexible and thin enough to provide adequate agility and board feel.

But skateboarding isn’t just a sport. It’s an art, a lifestyle, and a culture. Style matters in skateboarding, and the best skate shoes aren’t determined only by their tech or performance, but also by the way they look. A skate shoe can feel amazing, but it’s not going to become a classic without style, history, and cultural relevance to back it up. Every era of skateboarding from the early days of ‘sidewalk surfing’ to Yuto Horigome’s gold-medal-winning nollie backside 270º to noseblunt has its archetypal skate shoes. It wasn’t an easy task, but we narrowed it down to 10 of the models that best define the history of skateboarding footwear. Keep rolling!

Vans Era

started in 1966 as the Van Doren Rubber Company, selling boat-shoe-like canvas sneakers in a small store in Anaheim, California, and is considered the first core skate shoe brand. Early skateboarders organically started wearing Vans sneakers because of their functionality, durability, and affordable price. It wouldn’t be until 1976 that Vans fully realised their place in the skateboarding world when they began running ads in skateboard magazines and sponsoring riders. Skateboarding pioneer Stacy Peralta had this to say about Vans in the book Made For Skate: The Illustrated History of Skateboard Footwear: ‘Vans was the first company to recognise us as skateboarders and treat us seriously. They started providing us with shoes many years before any other companies would even look at us.’

There are a few early models from Vans that you can say ‘define skateboarding’, but none more than the Era, originally known as Style 95. The low-top canvas shoe was the first Vans model designed specifically for skateboarding. It’s basically the Authentic, the brand’s most simple, low-top canvas sneaker, with extra padding around the ankle to protect a skater’s foot and double stitching for extra durability. The other key feature of the Era is Vans’ now-iconic waffle-patterned, vulcanised rubber outsole, which perfectly gripped the board. The Era is the quintessential Vans skate shoe and the foundation that many of the ‘Off the Wall’ brand’s other core models like the , , and are built on. And when you think about how many skate shoes from other brands are inspired by these Vans models, you can say the Era is the granddaddy of all skateboard footwear.

Converse Chuck Taylor All Star

The most classic, timeless sneaker of all time is also one of the greatest skate shoes. Much like the early Vans sneakers, the was a casual sneaker (well, originally a basketball shoe) that became a skate shoe naturally. Skaters loved Chucks for their cheap price, thin and grippy vulcanised rubber sole that provided a great board feel, and the signature toe cap that protected toes and enhanced durability. By the end of the 80s, other skate sneaker brands like Vision Street Wear and Airwalk were producing their own Chuck-like models, and you’ve pretty much always been able to find some skate shoes that were inspired by the iconic Chuck Taylor on the market.

Today, via Converse’s CONS line of skate shoes, the Chuck Taylor All Star Pro is better than ever for skateboarding, with upgrades including a rubber-backed suede upper for long-lasting durability and a drop-in foam insole for impact protection.

Air Jordan 1

In 1984, little did Nike know that when they were creating a shoe for the NBA rookie sensation, named , they were also designing one of the best skate shoes ever. The Air Jordan 1 is another non-skate shoe that became a go-to for skaters as the sport progressed in the 80s. The got its big break in the skate scene in 1987 with the release of the iconic Bones Brigade skate video, The Search for Animal Chin, where Powell-Peralta team riders Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain, and Tommy Guerrero are spotted wearing pairs throughout the footage. (Tony Hawk never wears them.) But why were a bunch of pro skaters wearing basketball shoes? Times were tough financially in the skateboarding industry in the late 80s, as the sport was suffering from a slump in popularity. Skate parks were closing, fewer boards were being sold, and Vans, one of the only footwear brands sponsoring skaters at the time, couldn’t afford to send as many sneakers to their sponsored riders. It just so happened that Powell-Peralta’s Art Director Craig Stecyk had a contact at Nike who hooked the Bones Brigade up with Air Jordan 1s. (Stecyk later officially collaborated with Nike SB in 2014 on of the AJ1.)

By the late 80s, a lot of skaters were wearing basketball shoes, but none stood out as much as the Jordan 1 – with its distinct colour blocking and name recognition of the best player in the NBA. The boost from the Bones Brigade helped, but skaters loved the Jordan 1 regardless because of its durable leather upper, high-top ankle support, and cushioning. They loved it even more when stores started selling all of their surplus pairs for cheap. Nike made a lot of Jordan 1s before the Jordan 2 dropped in 1986, and it wasn't uncommon to find them on sale for rock-bottom prices. Makes you wish you had a time machine to go back and buy a pallet of Jordan 1s for $20 each, right?

Airwalk Prototype Series

There were smaller brands making skate shoes here and there from the 1960s to 1980s, but Vans were the only major ‘core’ skate shoe brand until Airwalk came along in 1986. Airwalk rose to prominence with their Prototype shoes, which were designed to stand up to the then-still-new street style of skating that included the ollie as the basis for most tricks. Anybody who has ever skated knows how quickly ollies will tear up your shoes. Airwalk combated ollie holes with the Prototype line, featuring durable double-stitched suede and leather uppers and rubber reinforcement along the ‘ollie area’ and toe of the shoe. Some models also featured lace covers to protect the laces from a skateboard’s grip tape as well as knee slides on vert ramps. By the early 90s, Airwalk had built up a team of respected skaters including Tony Hawk and Mike Vallely, and the Prototype series of models like the Bruiser, Jolly Mambo, 540º, and Velocity, with their distinct high-top designs and bright colours, defined the early street era of skateboarding.

Vans Half Cab

In 1989, Vans released the first signature skate shoe ever – from any brand – for Powell rider Steve Caballero, who was mentioned earlier as one of the Bones Brigaders that was an early adopter of the Air Jordan 1. The Vans Caballero featured an all-suede construction in a high-top silhouette sitting atop Vans’ signature vulcanised waffle sole. The shoe was an instant hit, but Caballero also noticed that a lot of skaters were cutting off the high-top ankle of the shoe for a better fit and feel. So he went to Vans and suggested that they actually produce the shoe in a lower silhouette and call it the Half Cab (which is also the name of a trick he invented). What Caballero and Vans created with the Half Cab turned out to be one of the greatest skate shoes of all time, and the longest running pro skateboarding model ever. Despite changing trends in skateboarding footwear and subsequent Caballero pro models, Vans have kept the Half Cab in production since it first launched in 1992, and there have been countless imitators of its perfect-for-skateboarding design.

The Half Cab was also the harbinger of the next era of skate shoes in the 90s, characterised by mid or low top silhouettes constructed in suede. Ending was the era of bulkier, more restrictive high-tops like the Air Jordan 1 and Airwalk Prototypes in favour of shoes like the one up next…

Etnies Sal 23

A core skate shoe brand that emerged in the early 90s was Etnies, who originally started in France in 1986 as ‘Etnics’ but changed their name for the US market. Etnies pioneered the basic blueprint for most modern skate shoes: low-cut upper built-in suede with a vulcanised or cup sole. Their breakthrough shoe, released in 1993, was simply called the Lo-Cut. It’s definitely a contender to make this list, but we’re going with the Etnies Sal 23 instead. The first signature shoe for legendary skater Salvador Lucas Barbier, or SLB for short, the Sal 23 was simple, but it gave a sporty edge to skate footwear: the ‘23’ on the shoe was a nod to Air Jordans, and the original box for the shoe featured a ‘Salvador Barbier’ logo in the style of the ‘Air Jordan’ logo on the tongue of the .

Barbier designed the Sal 23 as a reaction to all of the other shoes out there that he didn’t like, which were either too big and puffy or too thin and unprotective. Indeed, the Sal 23 definitely hits a sweet spot of having ample padding and cushion, but also being thin enough to offer a great board feel and a sleek look. The Sal 23 continues to influence skate shoe design to this day.

éS Koston 1

Modern skateboarding master first signature shoe with éS (pronounced ‘S’) is often regarded in the skateboarding community as the best skate shoe of all time. It’s definitely an ‘if you know, you know’ situation for anybody who has ever skated in a pair. éS was introduced in 1995 by Sole Technologies, the company that also included Etnies and Emerica under its umbrella, as a line of skate shoes with elevated, athletic-inspired designs, materials, and technology. Released in 1997, the Koston 1 defined the early days of éS with its sporty look featuring mesh panels on the upper and an air cushioning unit in the heel that was an obvious riff on Nike’s visible Air. Designs by éS continued to get more and more techy as the years went on, and they released plenty of other classic models, but nothing the brand ever put out topped the Koston 1. Pairs felt broken in right out of the box, and they came in a seemingly endless amount of amazing colourways. Try to name a colourway of the Koston 1 that sucked – you can’t!

Koston left éS in 2006 to join his buddies and fellow Girl Skateboards team riders Mike Carroll and Rick Howard’s skate shoe brand and the Koston 1 design was actually resurrected in 2008 when Lakai built their own version of it from the ground up. (éS were no longer making the Koston 1, and they didn’t seem to care that Lakai created their own version of it. That’s just kind of how things work in skateboarding.)

Proof of its iconic status, the Koston 1 is still kicking today as the re-resurrected, rebuilt éS One Nine 7, although it has a slightly different design by the reformed éS brand – éS’s timeline is a little murky, but basically they had some ownership changes and were on hiatus from roughly 2012 to 2016. Lately, éS have fallen into a more nostalgic skate shoe niche, restoring their classic late 90s models like the Creager, Muska, and Accel.

Emerica Reynolds 1

Another skate shoe that dominated the late 90s and early 2000s era of skateboarding was the Emerica Reynolds 1, the first signature shoe for Andrew Reynolds, who is still ripping today at the age of 46 (although now wearing ) and considered one of the all-time greats. The Reynolds 1, like the Koston 1, is one of the skate shoes from that era with a perfect balance of tech and traditional, functional skate shoe design. It featured an almost-mid-top silhouette with a suede or leather and mesh upper, rubber ollie area protection, and an airbag in the heel. (After Nike’s patent rights for the visible air unit expired in 1997, a host of skate shoe brands copied the tech.) Also like the Koston 1, it’s a shoe many pro and amateur skaters in shoe sponsor limbo were seen wearing from 1998 to about 2002 when the Reynolds 2 was released, which featured a more simplified yet just-as-plush and skateable design.

Both the Reynolds 1 and Koston 1, for better or worse, helped kick off the puffy, overly designed tech era of skate shoes, which birthed the quintessential sneaker of that period…

Osiris D3 2001/D3 2001

Love it or hate it, and whether you know it because you skated in a pair or saw Fred Durst wearing them in 2002, the Osiris D3 is a major piece of skate shoe history. If you can think of the progression of technical skate shoes as a mountain, the D3 is most definitely the peak. Many think the infamous sneaker was one single model, but there were actually two iterations of the D3. The original D3 was released in 1999 as the signature shoe for Osiris rider Dave Mayhew. The design featured an almost comically puffy shape with gobs of padding, giant plastic lace loops, and visible air bubbles in the heel. The D3 was already gaudy enough, but two years later, Osiris proceeded to drop the D3 2001 with a slightly redesigned upper that was even more durable (these things were tanks) and had visible air bubbles in the heel, midfoot, and forefoot. The giant, insane-looking shoe somehow became a major trend, worn mostly by skaters and non-skater mall kids alike who adopted the hip-hop-influenced fashion trends of the early 2000s. It may often be the butt of jokes, but the D3 is infamous enough that it has somehow stood the test of time. There have been multiple retros of the shoe by Osiris, and it was even copied by A$AP Rocky for his Under Armour colab in 2018 as well as by high-fashion label Lanvin.

Nike SB Dunk

The history of the in skateboarding starts out much the same as the Air Jordan 1. Both were released in 1985 and featured very similar designs, and both were gobbled up and thrashed by skaters in the late 80s after pairs hit the discount racks. That’s where Nike’s place in skate shoe history mostly ended until the early 2000s with the introduction of the Nike SB Dunk. Nike had a failed attempt at entering the skate shoe market in the late 90s with models like the Snak, Schimp, and infamously named Choad, which were all shunned by the core skate community who didn’t want to buy shoes from a brand they deemed too mainstream and corporate. It wouldn’t be until 2002 that Nike finally figured out a way to sink their teeth into the skate scene when the -led Nike SB division dropped a skate-specific edition of the Dunk. It turned out that Nike didn’t have to create a new skate shoe; the Dunk was the perfect option all along. Nike wooed skaters and sneaker collectors with limited-edition drops of the made-for-skate Dunk Low and Dunk High, strategic collaborations with the likes of Supreme and Stüssy, and a respected team of sponsored skaters. After years of being rejected by skateboarding, Nike had ollied into the culture by the end of the decade, and they’ve never stopped pushing since.

But it wasn’t all just Nike’s marketing expertise and flashy colourways that won over skaters. The shoes have to perform well on the board to have staying power, and the SB Dunk with its extra padding, a Zoom Air insert in the insole’s heel, and durable leather and/or suede construction, certainly does. Today, Nike SB sponsors many of the top pros and ams around the world, including Yuto Horigome of Japan and Rayssa Leal of Brazil who won the men’s gold medal and women’s bronze medal at the 2024 Olympics, each wearing their own SB Dunk colab colourway. Nike is so ingrained in skateboarding at this point that it’s hard to believe that for many years they weren’t accepted (or even really tried) to be in the skateboarding industry. And it’s all thanks to the Dunk.