Skate Shoes

Skate shoes are flat sole sneakers built with reinforced canvas or suede panels to handle board grip and daily pavement impact. Low top sneakers balance broad rubber cupsoles with padded collars, keeping trousers breaking cleanly over the tongue. Sturdy suede and leather in white, black, grey, green, or tan ground the profile.

In the mid seventies a drought in California left swimming pools empty, and skaters began riding their steep walls. Skaters later took up the Nike Dunk, which Nike first made for college basketball in the mid eighties, and in the early two thousands Nike SB remade it with a padded tongue and collar and Zoom Air insoles. Adidas makes skate shoes too.

Utopia in Toronto brings most of these, chiefly Nike SB Dunk Lows from collaborations, many of them pre owned, along with Adidas pairs. parlor23 in Toronto adds Nike too. The pairs here go with straight denim and heavy cotton trousers.