Designer-Skateboards by Hermès

© Hermès

You consider wearing an Hermès Carré around your neck boring? Why don’t you go then for a skateboard with an Hermès Carré motif and combine fashion with sports and fun! Or treat your daughter, your favourite nephew, maybe even yourself to an unusual fashion present. Skate back to a time of youthful lightheartedness. We hope for all buyers that the summer will extend well into the fall and you can appreciate riding your skateboard or longboard in style many times. If the weather should prove uninviting, the luxury board will also be a great wall decoration. The next summer is only a few months away!

The Hermès skateboards are adorned with three famous motives from the Carré family, designed by Henri d’Origny: “Bouclerie Moderne”, “Cavalcadour”, and “Sangles en zigzag”. It would be a shame if the beautiful motives would disappear through use. Of course the luxury label considered that and has chosen the so-called sublimation print technique which lets the pigment penetrate deep into the wood, with the result that the colour is staying brilliant for a longer time. Needless to say, the colourful Carré motives are applied on an exclusive material: The skateboards are made from beech wood and sycamore veneer. The longboards are fashioned out of the softer and more flexible sycamore wood with flax.

THE BIRTH OF THE SIDEWALK SURFER

The history of skateboarding began on the southwest coast of California in the 1950’s. Surfers attached little wheels to their surfboards to stay active in times without swell. This skateboard prototype accordingly was called “sidewalk surfer”. The sonnyboys of South California later conquered the beach promenades with their shorter, flatter and narrower board types. It took until 1964, skateboarding culture had been in full swing for four years, before the boards – that mean the world to some – were produced industrially. In 1965, the first skateboard magazine was published. The first international skateboarding competition took place in the Californian town of Anaheim. It was a wild event: Disciplines like slalom, freestyle, downhill as well as high jump and broad jump guaranteed a spectacle. It all took place on a course of slopes and curves. As the development of the boards progressed, the heavy, metal roller-skate wheels were replaced by polyurethane wheels, which guaranteed more traction and allowed for higher speeds.

All over the US concrete skate parks appeared whose walls were higher than those of the swimming pools that were used before. They were hugely popular among youngsters and far easier to navigate. The boards became wider too: Traditionally they had been around 19 cm in width, now they were up to 25 cm wide. Thus it was easier to keep the balance and new tricks could be developed. The American skateboard scene’s uncrowned stars were Tony Hawk, Stacy Peralta, Rodney Mullen, Duane Peters, Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, and Tony Alva. In the mid-seventies, skateboarding came to Europe, and from 1975 it took hold in Germany as well. Skater Titus Dittman smuggled the first boards from California to the Westphalian town of Münster. Over time he built a skateboard empire in Germany and also organized the biggest skateboarding competition in Europe, the Münster Monster Mastership. Even the skateboard elite of the US and of Western Europe made their way to Münster each year.

In the mid-eighties street skating became very popular in Germany and even developed into a mass sport. Unbelievable but true: The conservative-catholic Münster became the hotbed of the new scene. Since 1989 the Münster Monster Mastership is considered the official world championship and draws an audience of about 18,000. By the way, the star of Germany’s skateboarding scene in the eighties was Claus Grabke, who today works as a musician and music producer.

Has the skateboarding bug bitten you now?! Then jump onto the board: From now on Hermès offers test rides.  The skateboards and longboards will be available from September 2017 in the boutiques of the label and are going to cost around 2,500 euros. One thing is for certain: You will be the star in the half-pipe!