Skate Shoes are big business

Over the last twenty years skate and surf fashion has really exploded into the mainstream. Although skating and surfing has soared in popularity and grabbed no end of media attention, with stars in those sports becoming huge celebrities. We all know names like Tony Hawk or Kelly Slater. A lot of these athletes have now become entrepreneurs and started their own businesses from clothing, to hardware to media empires. Going back to Tony Hawk, he is involved with skateboard hardware, a video game empire and huge promotional tours.

As now millions of people have their eyes on the action sport or extreme sport the natural progression has been to absorb that culture. The easiest way is to take influences from the fashion. Skate shoes are trainers but are typically chunkier in design. They are tough, feature a lot of padding and have hard wearing soles. The design is there to make the shoe withstand the daily wear and tear a skaters footwear suffers from. The deck of a skateboard is covered with grip tape which is a kind of sand paper which in turn helps the shoe grip on the board. This highly abrasive surface causes havoc on shoes. Active skaters who ride every day typically destroy a set of trainers every month or two so you can see why skaters are always going to be on the look out for cheap skate shoes.

Trainer fashion is a big thing in these days which has been fulled by music culture too. Everyone loves being a bit more adventurous with their fashion choices and wilder, bolder choices are very fashionable right now. Retro styles have also resurged with great success. The skate shoe industry has fully embraced both of these trends with brands redesigning models from the late 70s and 80s.

Other smaller niches have emerged such as the market for vegan skate shoes.