What Is Skater Style? The Aesthetic, Explained

Skater style is built for falling down. Loose jeans or cargo trousers that let you move, a graphic T-shirt or hoodie, a beanie or cap, and flat-soled shoes that grip the board and get destroyed in weeks. It comes from the skateboarders of California in the 1970s and has shaped streetwear, music videos and luxury fashion ever since. Skaters themselves often roll their eyes when non-skaters copy the look, but that has never stopped it from spreading.

What is skater style?

Skater style is the clothing worn by skateboarders and inspired by their culture. It is practical first: clothes need to be loose, tough and cheap enough to ruin. On top of that, skate culture has its own brands, magazines, videos and artists, and wearing them signals belonging. The look has changed with every generation, from 1970s tube socks to 1990s giant jeans and today’s mix of vintage workwear and slim fits.

Where it came from

Skateboarding began in California in the 1950s and 1960s, when surfers looking for something to do on flat days put wheels on wooden boards, calling it “sidewalk surfing”. In the mid-1970s, a team of young skaters from Santa Monica and Venice known as the Z-Boys transformed it, skating in a low, aggressive style and riding the walls of empty swimming pools during a drought. Their story is told in the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001).

Vans, a shoe company founded in Anaheim, California, in 1966, became the skaters’ brand of choice because its sticky waffle soles gripped the board. In the late 1970s it worked with skaters Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta on the Era shoe, and its checkerboard Slip-On became a classic. Thrasher magazine, launched in San Francisco in 1981, became the voice of skating, with the motto “Skate and Destroy” and a flame logo now seen all over the world.

In the 1980s, skate teams such as the Powell Peralta Bones Brigade, including Tony Hawk, and skate punk bands spread the culture. The 1990s brought street skating, giant baggy jeans, puffy skate shoes and a new wave of skater-owned brands. Films such as Larry Clark’s Kids (1995) and the skate videos of director Spike Jonze shaped the image of the era, and in 1994 Supreme opened as a skate shop in New York. The video game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (1999) introduced millions of players to skate culture, and Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” (2002) brought it to pop radio.

In the 2010s, London’s Palace and other skate brands became streetwear powerhouses, and celebrities started wearing Thrasher T-shirts, to the annoyance of many skaters. In 2021, skateboarding made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games.

The codes

• Tops: graphic and brand T-shirts, hoodies, flannel shirts, work jackets, coach jackets.
• Bottoms: baggy or relaxed jeans, Dickies-style work trousers, cargo pants, long shorts.
• Shoes: Vans (Old Skool, Sk8-Hi, Slip-On), Nike SB Dunks, Converse, flat-soled skate shoes.
• Accessories: beanies, five-panel caps, tube socks, a skateboard, a backpack, stickers on everything.
• Colours and graphics: washed black, olive, navy and denim, with bold board-style artwork and logos.

See the mood

The references

Film and video: Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Kids (1995), Jonah Hill’s Mid90s (2018), Skate Kitchen (2018), and the Netflix film Skater Girl (2021), set in a village in Rajasthan.

Brands: Vans, Thrasher, Santa Cruz, Powell Peralta, Girl, Supreme, Palace, Dickies, Nike SB, Polar Skate Co.

Music: skate punk and hardcore, 1990s hip-hop, and the soundtracks of skate videos and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.

Why it caught on

Skating represents freedom: from rules, from teams and coaches, from the expectation to use public space “properly”. Skater clothes carry that spirit even for people who never step on a board. They are also comfortable, unisex and affordable. Skate brands have always had strong graphics and art, and their videos created a whole visual language that streetwear and fashion later borrowed.

In India, skateboarding is still young but growing fast. Community skateparks such as Janwaar Castle in Madhya Pradesh, opened in 2015, and parks and crews in Bengaluru, Goa, Mumbai and Delhi have built small, passionate scenes, with girls’ skating getting particular attention.

The debate

The classic argument is “poser” culture: people who wear skate brands but do not skate. When pop stars wore Thrasher shirts in the 2010s, many skaters felt their culture was being turned into a fashion accessory. Others point out that skating has always fed off fashion and that the money from mainstream fans helps support skaters and brands. A newer debate is about who gets to belong: skating has historically been dominated by young men, and the growth of women’s, queer and non-Western skate scenes is changing what skater style looks like.

How to wear it now

Loose straight jeans or work trousers, a vintage or skate-brand tee, a hoodie or work jacket, and well-used Vans or skate shoes. Add a beanie and long socks. Keep it a little worn: brand-new skater clothes look wrong. And if you want to wear the Thrasher shirt, maybe learn to ollie first.

Where it is now

Skater style is part of everyday fashion, from baggy jeans to Vans and Nike SB Dunks. The Olympics brought new attention to the sport, and skate brands continue to collaborate with luxury houses. At the same time, local skate scenes keep the culture rooted in the street.

Related aesthetics

Streetwear · Grunge · Punk · Emo · Normcore

Learn more: hear from more voices

Why skaters dress the way they do, and how skating changed fashion for good.

Read more

• 60 years of Vans: a brief history, from Z-Boys and skaters to sneaker staples — Shortlist. The shoe brand at the heart of skate style.
• How did skateboarding’s Thrasher T-shirt become the fashionista’s “off duty” look? — Manchester Fashion Institute. An academic paper on skate culture and fashion.

Sources: skateboarding histories of the Z-Boys, Vans and Thrasher; Olympic records (Tokyo 2020, held 2021); coverage of Janwaar Castle skatepark. Videos are embedded from YouTube and remain the work of their creators. Linked articles belong to their publishers.