The Best Skate Shoes To Buy In 2022
We’ve all been there: 13 years young, skateboard tucked self-consciously under arm, and a pair of baggy jeans slung precariously low around the buttocks. To tie the look together, two trainers so puffy they would make a pair of Ugg boots seem positively aerodynamic. The best Skate shoes for men.
Unless you’re among the 0.000001 per cent of people who actually made the transition from gangly teenage misfit to professional skateboarder, chances are that you think the best skate shoes for men are still the classic Vans models, like the Old Skool and Authentic, which have been popular outside the half-pipe for decades. Other models, especially bloated, bubbly styles from the ’90s, were last spotted when your voice broke.
Don’t be too quick to dismiss them, though. The best Skate shoes for men have come a long way over the past decade or two. Silhouettes have slimmed back down, simplicity rules supreme once again, and what are left of the oversized designs have been granted a new lease of legitimacy by the fashion world’s fixation with chunky trainers.
At the same time, skate brands have been trending in fashion for the last few years as retro styles and informality rule menswear.
What Makes The Best Skate Shoe for Men?
If you don’t already know what we’re talking about here, the clue is in the name. These are shoes designed for skateboarding.
It began in the late 1960s in Anaheim, California, when a little brand by the name of Vans began designing footwear for SoCal’s most popular new pastime. Skateboarding was growing fast, and as four-wheeled planks went global, so too did the shoes built to ride them in.
In the time that has elapsed since the ’60s, the best skate shoes for men have beefed up, shrunk back down, become highly technical and then overtly minimalist again.
Throughout, though, there have remained several constants which have become key identifiers for this breed of performance footwear. Flat grippy soles, reinforced stress points to withstand grip-tape abrasions, strategically placed padding to preempt ankle injuries and the enduring popularity of the ‘pro model’.
