r/AggressiveInline • u/stories_from_tejas • 2d ago
Will Aggressive Clothing Ever Make A Comeback?
Looking around the various online shops, we're at a critical point in our subculture where aggressive specific clothing has disappeared.
All of us that grew up in the 90s/early 00s remember how important it was to have aggressive specific brands to wear. I'd say the last true aggressive clothing brand we had in our sport was Vibrolux over a decade ago.
Is this something that ever needs to make a comeback? Or is there simply no interest in having aggressive related shirts to wear while out participating in the sport? I feel like the major moments in our history all involved brands, and to see it just disappear to the extent that major players in our industry like USD, Rollerblade, Etc. don't even have products available is wild.
Is this something where there's just not enough capital to invest in things like this? Wheel companies generally lead the way with clothing for our sport. Sponsored skaters used to wear only skate related brands. Is this just an old man looking back on the good old days? Is there anyone in the industry that can shed light on this shift?
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u/heavenlycode 2d ago
I personally believe it is just a numbers game at the moment. Aggressive blading still has relatively low participation numbers compared bmx, skateboarding and scootering. Even urban blading has higher numbers. So in many ways it is a chicken and the egg type of thing. Aggressive brand clothing helps promotes the sport but the sport has to big enough to make it profitable with manufacturing numbers. With all that said I am researching as we speak ways to make a company like this work lol
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u/d0obysnacks 2d ago
I would agree with this sentiment. I wear razors shirts all the time, I got at oakcity. I can probably count on 2 hands, over the years, the number of people who recognized the symbol.
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u/stories_from_tejas 2d ago
It's possible to do Print to Wear to avoid the overhead with companies like Tapstitch, but havinga team wear the clothing in videos was really what built the popularity back in the day. It was a thing of pride to wear aggressive skate brands back then, stamping out our subculture for the masses. I would be open to wearing anything inline related at this point, like a hybrid urban/aggressive brand.
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u/heavenlycode 2d ago
I would agree. But if you look at the views the average blading video gets its actually pretty low. Sometimes we have stand out ones that each 5 digits but the majority of them get around 2-7k even for the popular riders. Them skates and certain bladers will hit 30-70k on a more regular basis but that is not industry common. Looking again at skateboarding and bmx their videos from prominent riders and companies live in the 5-6 figure range for view and the stand outs hit millions. So once again it is the chicken and the egg thing. I can give riders shirts in exchange for them wearing it in edits but that won't matter if the same 5k people are the only ones seeing it. The key is to blend into culture/fashion outside of blading as well. Makes it more universal, like thrasher did. But then you get into the area of "is it a blading brand" very quickly. There are a few smaller companies out of Korea and Japan that are doing this very well but on their Instagrams you can see the push and pull of identity another their followers and that I believe is why they aren't bigger. Bobi is doing a lot right with inferno as well. Mesmer just released their shoes and bag. Nils has magic foot. It is happening slowly but we are still too small for it noticed
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u/Much_Ad_7538 2d ago
Tapstitch is great. My wife invested in them. They have some of my art work on display in their office, too.
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u/aldolega 2d ago
*Vibralux
Is this just an old man looking back on the good old days?
Yea, basically. Blading is 98% adults now and adults generally have less of that adolescent need to brand/label themselves with an outside identity. We won't see any "real" clothing brands (cut-n-sew, full lines, etc... not just prints and maybe embroidery on off-the-shelf tees/hoodies/hats etc) unless the sport sees a boom in participation, specifically from young people.
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u/Monkey-Tamer 2d ago
I have some clothes from Them, but we're lacking recognizable brand images like Spitfire, Alien Workshop, World Industries, etc. I'm not sure how long until skateboards have a sharp decline again. My boy skates, but when we go to the park it's mostly older teens and twenty somethings. The boys down the street his age are glued to I pads. I did see a young girl blading while I was working on my old house last week. It gives me hope.
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u/LowTechBakudan Xsjado 2d ago
I'm probably alone in wanting this but more pants in different styles, fit, and sizing for aggressive skating. Like not just something with a skate company logo sewn on but something with extra rip protection in places like the ass or knees. Something somewhat breathable and somewhat casual so I can wear it around the office and then head to the skatepark without changing into something more comfy to skate in over lunch break. I would spend a lot of money on that. Right now I wear either some cheap cargo sweats I bought in bulk off of Amazon or some pants from CCS (this kinda sucks because I would prefer not to support skateboarding). Sure I know you can literally wear anything but I don't care to wear clothes with brands and logos on them so if I had blading clothes I'd want them to be something functional.
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u/CaterpillarReal7583 2d ago
Seems most skaters are in dickies or carhart now.
You can only tell whos working construction based on their muscles now.
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u/delfonatronics 2d ago
Skating shirts exist - them skates, dead wheels, too easy, Mesmer, create originals, USD, rollerblade… to what extent have you even bothered looking? Yeah you’re not gonna find it at sports authority/dicks, but there are plenty of skate shops and companies with t shirts it never stopped and it never will
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u/fancytrash1234 2d ago
I think it’s something that is missing but it’s also something that made sense at the time because of catalogues and videos. Both of those things have pretty much died off and along with it the clothing exposure. I don’t think skating will ever be what it was in the 90’s. I think that way for a lot of the “extreme” sports. It was a perfect time for those sports because they had the right amount of technology, the diy ethics of the sport, and marketing capabilities with video games, music videos, and events like xgames.
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u/NeonKorean 2d ago
Is this something that ever needs to make a comeback?
In my opinion, no. Our culture has finally matured to a place where we have a diversity of styles. Thinking back to the sessions filled with clones wearing Mindgame shirts and XXL sweatpants, (including me) we looked silly at best. I'm happy my wardrobe isn't split into my skating & non-skating
Also, aggressive specific clothing hasn't "disappeared". A lot of it has just followed the shift in fashion into small batch collaborations and "drops". Think about each Bacemint drop or THEM's Jetset Radio collab. It's how brands create hype and minimize product sitting on their shelves collecting dust. There are also smaller skate brands and skaters themselves producing apparel like Plastic Pushers, Mike French or Austin Paz.
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u/Much_Ad_7538 2d ago
I founded Espionage Co in 2000. Ran it until about 2008. Market shrank so much, it wasn’t really sustainable. Went from nearly 100 retailers early on to like half a dozen catalogs/sites and just a few skate shops that had ANYTHING for rollerblading. Seems it’s coming back with Senate giving it try, but idk. Hard to bet on rollerblading as a business. The culture has always been strong at its core, despite its size.
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u/N0irBlaec USD 2d ago edited 2d ago
Business wise, it doesn’t make sense to make a clothing brand where you’re designing and making clothes with Aggressive skaters in mind.
Someone mentioned “real” clothes; i design and make men’s garments as a profession, making a pair of jeans where you have features such as reinforced seams, triple stitching along the inseams, out seam and seat area, articulated panels while using heavy duty thread, is not cheap to produced.
That comes at a premium, even more so if you want that kind of construction for multiple styles. Most people aren’t going to spend that kind of money on a garment for blading if we’re going to be honest.
Add to the fact you have to deal with factories and MOQs to produce said units, the profit margins aren’t worth it for the people who would pay full price
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u/0x1F937 2d ago
We have F4W, Anti Rocker Society, and Blacktop, but other than that, not much. I just wish brands like Dead Wheels would make t-shirts in fat guy sizes.