Skating and the importance of clothes

[Hyliannightmare]

With the rise of the Olympics and the jockification of skating I'm actually upset that the athletic look hasn't taken off more. Those tights feel amazing on old knees

[j....soy.....]

I dunno dude what kind of sport do they not keep score but just let you are your homies film for months on end? 

In this comparison it’s not a sport…..

Compare it to street league where the judges don’t consider outfits in deciding a winner….this is a sport…

[DaleSr]

Closest thing is maybe basketball.

Although Giannis’ clothes will not determine whether he’s MVP, there’s quite a few stars that are more popular than they should be because they wear rare sneakers in games or have a sick hairstyle.

The opposite applies as well. John Stockton’s short shorts were so unhip by 90’s standards that he made Karl Malone look like a stiff white guy just by proximity. And who can forget the time Carlos Boozer hair looked like it was painted on? Lmfao

Bball is a good comparison. Harden grew out the beard and mohawk to disguise his big ass head, LeBron got plugs to fight father time, Jimmy butler was clowned for his extensions this off-season, elfrid Payton had to cut his hair to slightly improve his shooting, people clown Trae young for his unibrow and troll doll hair. In contrast, Gerald green probably extended his career by having cool ass hair styles and big dunks, Jordan rocking the gold chain is very iconic, everyone loves Luka cause he's white and handsome

[livin on a speyer]

Bill Weiss had the best clothing choise.

[vinithebr]

Clothes are overrated embrace nature

Jamie Thomas was ahead of his time

[BurgerCop]

With the rise of the Olympics and the jockification of skating I'm actually upset that the athletic look hasn't taken off more. Those tights feel amazing on old knees

That's what knee braces are for!
I know, I have to wear braces on both knees when I skate haha...ha...heh...ah fuck now I'm sad...

[Terminal]

Skaters have always been bigger fashion queens than most big fashion queens.

Agreed, some more than others. I reckon if some pros spent even 10% of the time they spend in front of the mirror on their boards they'd be unstoppable...

[scab]

Closest thing is maybe basketball.

Although Giannis’ clothes will not determine whether he’s MVP, there’s quite a few stars that are more popular than they should be because they wear rare sneakers in games or have a sick hairstyle.

The opposite applies as well. John Stockton’s short shorts were so unhip by 90’s standards that he made Karl Malone look like a stiff white guy just by proximity. And who can forget the time Carlos Boozer hair looked like it was painted on? Lmfao

One of the truly great joys in my life is coming back to Boozer's paint hair from time to time. I'd think not all Pals are NBA fans, so here it is for all to enjoy.

[Sila]

Do people have the same attitude towards fashion in the BMX,inline, and scooter worlds?

[switchfakie]

bowling

[modern life is war]

Do people have the same attitude towards fashion in the BMX,inline, and scooter worlds?

They just try to do whatever skaters do but 5 years too late

[modern life is war]

I couldn’t help but notice most threads about Tyshawn and Nyjah’s parts and discussing their outfits more then than Skating itself.

So it got me thinking if there is any other sport where clothes play just as an important part as the sport itself and define the athlete?

I don't think there is another sport where clothes are so important and that's probably mostly because in all other sports there is a specific style of clothing you have to wear for various reasons - either because it's a team sport and you need to be easily identified (eg basketball or football), or because of necessity/tradition, like boxers wearing shorts and boxing shoes or people who do horse sports wearing those what is almost formal attire (i know nothing about this world).

In skateboarding self-expression and creativity has filled the space that is taken by quantifiable skill in other sports. Surfing is very similar to this in the way that you can choose how you ride and what you ride, eg high performance hawaiian big wave surfers vs soulful socal point break surfers, although their self-expression is limited to their style on a surfboard because what they can wear is usually determined by how cold the water is.

Maybe the importance of self-expression in skateboarding in comparison to other sports makes skaters feel a need to separate themselves from the non-skaters and a simple way to do that is have unwritten/unspoken rules for what you can and cannot wear while being considered a skateboarder. To even further complicate things to outsiders, these implicit rules are constantly changing from year to year as skateboard fashion gradually trickles down to non-skaters and skateboarders have to continually separate themselves from the non-skaters.

Using SOTY contenders as examples, Nyjah obviously breaks these rules by dressing like a football player on a rest day, TFunk and louie lopez stay well within the rules and Tyshawn is on the edge of breaking the rules which is polarizing to the skate community as he is either seen as progressive or cringe.

[aiden]

TFunk and louie lopez stay well within the rules and Tyshawn is on the edge of breaking the rules which is polarizing to the skate community as he is either seen as progressive or cringe.

tfunk is starting to push it with the fits, every time i see new footage he starts to look more and more like some stoner bum in some 90s movie (which i guess is pretty normal for skateboarders in 2022)

[Blueabyssofthisss]

If you’re good enough, the skating does the talking

[mightytrucks]

If you’re good enough, the skating does the talking

your man William Phan had the perfect fits- baggy clothes without looking sloppy. Penny had the same fit but he came before Phan. It's not often that people rock baggy fits and still look crispy but when it happens, its the best fit. It's easy to look dopey and sloppy wearing big clothes.

[Ziad]

clothes matter with overall style mostly the pants i think
what if Nyjah had good style if he wore baggy jeans

[greenbeans]

wear whatever you want.

[mightytrucks]

wear whatever you want.

I think its safe to say that a skaters style could max out if they wore something different than what they might be wearing currently. For example, Koston became a new creation during the menikmati era w/ his fit, his koston 3s, and his shaved head. He looked sick.

[Easy Slider]

clothes matter with overall style mostly the pants i think
what if Nyjah had good style if he wore baggy jeans

I would love to see a clip of Nyjah doing one of these crazy rails in DCs, big boys and without Monster hat. Come on Nyjah give us just one clip.

[Mean salto]

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clothes matter with overall style mostly the pants i think
what if Nyjah had good style if he wore baggy jeans

[close]

I would love to see a clip of Nyjah doing one of these crazy rails in DCs, big boys and without Monster hat. Come on Nyjah give us just one clip.

Nyjah already gave us some tech DCs and nobody wanted them

[Paul Cicero]

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No. I don’t think there’s another sport where you get more points on the scoreboard for what you wear.

Individual athletes for sure want to look good because it might result in more fans or more sponsorship $$$, but that’s not what you’re asking.

[close]

In hindsight it’s a bit of stupid question to ask, like others have said it’s far to unique and individualistic to compare to other sports

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Figure skaters rock the wildest fits, easy.

[close]

That’s my point though, if a figure skater does an nbd nobody will discredit it because of the outfit.

Where these two most recent skate parts put out by Tyshawn and Nyjah have been pushed aside by the majority of users here because the clothes they are wearing.

[close]

Claiming that they are being pushed aside by users here is inaccurate. There are multiple pages and threads of people praising their parts as being SOTY worthy. You can dislike someone's fits and still appreciate their skateboarding. The two are not mutually exclusive.

[close]

I have the exact same opinion as you and obviously the OP of those topics do aswell, but that doesn’t disprove the fact both those Soty threads are filled with more comments about the clothing choice than the tricks

[close]

To be fair though, they both wear some objectively bad fits. Nigel's salmon joggers and white hoodie that he wore during that gap to noseblunt was absolutely atrocious. TJ's NY jeans he was wearing for the first switch ollie over the table was also really bad. I'm sure when someone inevitably makes a thread about the Play Dead video, there will more discussions of the whacky fits. Some people wear some odd shit and its ok for people to call them out for it. It is what it is.

[close]

I 100% get that and that’s why I asked the question “is skating the only sport this happens in”

But it’s become pretty evident that Skateboarding is to unique to try and compare it to other sports.

I personally don’t even notice the outfits but I’m also a dude who doesn’t really prioritise clothes

[close]

Post a fit

[close]

I’d get roasted my dude, im as basic as it gets. Im a tall skinny dude so usually wear a long fitting basic shirt and some cotton shorts or loosely fitting pants.

Mainly shorts though because I’m in northern Australia and it’s hot as fuck

[close]

I was wondering if your username is a reference to the band or it must be since you're from australia

[close]

Sure is man!

Surrounded by fools, and put to the test!

[Terminal]

If you’re good enough, the skating does the talking

Precisely

[Cuban_Lynx]

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Skaters have always been bigger fashion queens than most big fashion queens.

[close]

come to slap for the latest news and videos, stay for the hyper-analysis of pants

Most of us are pissed about the Supreme video because we couldn’t get a clear view of the pants, except for Ben K’s part.

[companguero]

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Figure skaters rock the wildest fits, easy.

[close]

That’s my point though, if a figure skater does an nbd nobody will discredit it because of the outfit. The wilder the outfit is usually celebrated.

Where these two most recent skate parts put out by Tyshawn and Nyjah have been pushed aside by the majority of users here because the clothes they are wearing.

The DCI / WGI (drum corps) take the shoddy fabulousness of the stereotypical figure skater costume and multiply it a hundred times over.
The past few years a buddy shared his interest in marching band competitions. I'm baffled by these corps ability to coordinate the most intensive field routines while playing ~15 minutes of complex music yet their wardrobe dept comes up with the most eye sweating "mom made my halloween costume"



This is RCC (Riverside City College) in 2017 with some kinda fluorescent Buzz lightyear theme and fucking flames on the drum shells.
Now, opinions of a corps look don't necessarily affect scores, but they definitely skew my appreciation for their routines.
These guys compete in WGI but tend to feed players in to the larger DCI Blue Devils corp who are notorious for very high rankings.
Compare RCC to The Academy from Arizona, their well made theme outfits and overall cohesive shows blow me away despite the lesser technical ability.

... Love 50 Lions: "We're talking bout pants?! Not the NBDs, not the nbds , not the nbds"

[boi-cuzudo]

whatever happened to white t shirts and blue jeans?

[OwlGreen]

The profit margins in "hard good" sales of boards, wheels, and trucks are pretty slim. They act as something close to a loss leader which is seen as necessary in order to create demand for high-margin branded apparel from the same companies. Indy makes a lot more selling cotton than aluminum. The mag is Thrasher's loss leader, and it creates the cool cachet which makes people want to spend tens of millions on logo T's. Skateboarding is a clothing company. It makes sense that skaters care so much about gear, their jobs depend upon it. The entire skate economy is propped up by profits which come from clothing and shoe sales. The big shoe and fashion companies are the biggest winners in the current state of things since everything they make is high-margin.
All we're doing out there is dancing. If I go to the ballet, I'm going to care about the costume and set design, regardless of the caliber of the dancing. It's no different with caring about spot selection and gear. Stylish gear never made wack skating any less wack, but wack gear has definitely rendered some great skating somewhat less enjoyable to watch. Skate videos are the perfect runway show/lookbook, as all of Bill's Supreme work will attest. I welcome the ever-increasing seamless fusion of skateboarding and fashion. It's been this way a long time, we used to just be too embarrassed to admit it.

[Mean salto]

whatever happened to white t shirts and blue jeans?

Got replaced by black t shirt with brown cords.

[OhioGuy]

Honestly, I assume most of the posters on here are white. So when someone talks about Tyshawn’s durags or Nyjah’s clothes it’s easy to ignore.

That’s probably the anti-blackness Tyshawn was talking about in the industry. Cause by making fun of his clothes, you’re basically making fun of Black culture cause he just dresses like a Black kid from the inner city.

But it’s the vocal minority here. At the local skate parks no one gives a shit, and you’ll see kids in basketball shorts, hell some skating in non skate shoes. I doubt anyone has said something about Tyshawn’s clothes to his face lol

[323-BALM]

Honestly, I assume most of the posters on here are white. So when someone talks about Tyshawn’s durags or Nyjah’s clothes it’s easy to ignore.

That’s probably the anti-blackness Tyshawn was talking about in the industry. Cause by making fun of his clothes, you’re basically making fun of Black culture cause he just dresses like a Black kid from the inner city.

But it’s the vocal minority here. At the local skate parks no one gives a shit, and you’ll see kids in basketball shorts, hell some skating in non skate shoes. I doubt anyone has said something about Tyshawn’s clothes to his face lol

Yes indeed. The “I don’t see skin color” white people. Lukewarm acceptance vs outright rejection and that. Couching it in “look, I criticize all skaters the same, regardless,” is not admirable.

[mightytrucks]

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Honestly, I assume most of the posters on here are white. So when someone talks about Tyshawn’s durags or Nyjah’s clothes it’s easy to ignore.

That’s probably the anti-blackness Tyshawn was talking about in the industry. Cause by making fun of his clothes, you’re basically making fun of Black culture cause he just dresses like a Black kid from the inner city.

But it’s the vocal minority here. At the local skate parks no one gives a shit, and you’ll see kids in basketball shorts, hell some skating in non skate shoes. I doubt anyone has said something about Tyshawn’s clothes to his face lol

[close]

Yes indeed. The “I don’t see skin color” white people. Lukewarm acceptance vs outright rejection and that. Couching it in “look, I criticize all skaters the same, regardless,” is not admirable.

For me it's just the short shorts. Not a fan of seeing dude's upper thighs. The combination of big, long t shirts and short shorts never looks good.