For his New York skateboarding label’s first collaboration with New Balance Numeric — the skate division of the US footwear brand — Grand Collection founder Ben Oleynik wanted to make sneakers that more than just skateboarders would buy.
So Oleynik dressed up the 1980s-era New Balance 770 that Numeric had retooled for skateboarding with premium leather to create something that could be worn with his label’s $800 Italian cashmere zip-ups. The shoe didn’t debut in a grainy skate video, but at a runway show last Friday in New York.
“Our skate videos and shoes touch the core endemic skate community. But we’re also hosting showrooms during Paris Fashion Week, and presenting runway shows, which completely transcends skate and spreads out into the broader fashion world and audience,” said Oleynik.
Grand Collection faces a tough market, however, since getting fashion customers to buy skate sneakers isn’t as easy as it used to be. After surging along with the rise of streetwear in the 2010s, the category fell off and has continued to struggle as shoppers traded skateboarding shoes in for mesh retro running silhouettes and terrace sneakers. In the first six months of 2025, market-research firm Circana reported that skate footwear sales fell by 15 percent year on year, after seeing declines last year as well.
The good news for brands like Grand Collection is that there are signs the category is once again finding fresh momentum.
Luxury customers have been buying sneakers like ERL’s “Vamp” inspired by the Osiris D3 skate shoe popular in the 2000s. Vans recently dropped what’s proved to be its hottest sneaker on the resale market this year with the Old Skool 36 “Souvenir,” a colourway modelled on Chanel’s 2014 Graffiti Messenger Bag. While it will take more than that to return Vans to growth after years of slumping sales, Bracken Darrell, chief executive of Vans-owner VF Corp, flagged during an earnings call last month that the brand saw a 50 percent increase in Paris Fashion Week showroom appointments during the recent Spring/Summer 2026 season, which also had luxury brands from Dior to Prada put skate-inspired sneaker silhouettes on the runway.
To add to the evidence, Asics shared with Footwear News in May that its sales of skate shoes in the US grew triple digits during its most recent quarter, and New Balance Numeric’s general manager, Sebastian Palmer, told The Business of Fashion that the label has been gradually growing in North America since the pandemic, despite the challenges the skateboard industry has faced at large.
Even if skate shoes themselves go in and out of fashion, skateboarding has become a recurring source of inspiration and signifier of cool for fashion labels. Luxury houses such as Dior have signed Olympic skateboarders as brand ambassadors, and Louis Vuitton dubbed Tyshawn Jones — a street skater who recently held a $1-million-per-year endorsement deal with Supreme — a “friend of the house” in February.
“Ever since street skating blew up in the ’90s and redefined street style, so much of what happens in fashion across the board references skateboarding,” said Highsnobiety’s editor-in-chief Noah Johnson. “So especially in menswear, it’s going to be a place designers return to again and again.”
Meanwhile, big and small footwear labels are gaining traction by taking fresh design approaches and leaning into dressier styles rather than the exaggerated takes on retro sneakers that once defined the category. And while a commitment to authenticity by both large sportswear and indie brands serves as a point of attraction to skateboarders, skate shoes offer an attractive value to all shoppers due to their inherently low price point.
“One other thing that’s interesting about vulcanised silhouettes by brands like Vans is that they can really capitalise on moments when we have economic softening, because it’s generally a less expensive sneaker,” said Bradley Carbone, the managing editor of the skateboard and street culture magazine Sneeze.
The Value Proposition That Skate Sneakers Offer
Skate sneakers need to hit an affordable price point because they’re intended to be heavily worn, quickly replaced and often target a younger customer, Carbone said. While most popular sneakers worn by lifestyle consumers today cost anywhere from $90 to $200, the lowest-priced sneaker offered by New Balance Numeric retails for $75; the most expensive, a signature shoe by Andrew Reynolds, retails for $130.
That price-to–value equation is also boosting emerging indie skate sneaker labels such as Last Resort AB, a Swedish label founded in 2020 that’s grown its distribution from 250 retailers in 25 countries to 700 retailers across 40 countries within five years. The brand’s price point is currently capped at $119. The brand’s biggest market is Japan, where it’s stocked in fashion boutiques such as Beams and Journal Standard and often worn as casual footwear, according to co-founder Sami Tolppi.
“If we’re going to make skate shoes, they need to be around $100 because skaters wear them and break them in a month if they skate them. But if you don’t, it’s a pretty great price point,” said Tolppi.
Paris-based Village PM similarly said the affordability of its climbing shoe-inspired skate sneakers helps it compete against the trendy low-profile silhouettes it sits next to in fashion stockists such as Dover Street Market.
How Skate Sneakers Are Evolving Beyond Retro Silhouettes
The mantra that guides Village PM, whose distribution is currently split between European skate shops and fashion boutiques such as Slam Jam and The Broken Arm, is “skateboarding deserves progressive footwear.” How its founders, Basile Lapray and Bram De Cleen, interpret it is that skateboarding sneakers don’t have to follow a prescribed silhouette to be functional and can sample ideas from other sports, such as the ergonomic fit of climbing shoes, to build something new.
They’re far from alone in steering away from traditional approaches to skate footwear design.
Palmer said New Balance doesn’t have as many skateable retro silhouettes as its larger competitors — a route brands like Nike have constantly taken with skate sneakers — pushing Numeric to lean into releasing completely new signature sneaker models while maintaining New Balance’s design language. He pointed out that even sneakers inspired by archival silhouettes, such as the Tom Knox 600 or the upcoming Grand Collection collaboration, are mixed up enough by Numeric to create something new and versatile.
“It doesn’t look like anything else and we’re really excited to bring it to market, but we do it in our own way,” Palmer said about New Balance’s tie up with Grand Collection. “So we make sure that it’s as robust for skateboarding as possible and if you’re not skating that it’s a comfortable, reliable, lifestyle option as well.”
Last Resort AB creates skateable iterations of classic menswear shoes such as moccasins or loafers and is planning to introduce its first non-skate sneaker style with a lug sole next month. Tolppi believes an opportunity opened up for brands like his because many core skate brands didn’t address how skateboarding has opened up to fashion.
“Skaters [today] aren’t exclusively wearing skate brands. They want to wear, like, Dr. Martens or other shoes and clothes,” said Tolppi.
Unlike other sneaker categories driven by technical innovations that make athletes perform better, what’s paramount for skate sneakers is a true commitment to the sport and the larger subculture around it.
Highsnobiety’s Johnson said that while the most relevant skateboarding-sneaker brands continue to be ones founded by major sportswear players due to their production capabilities, what distinguishes them from one another is which athletes they support, flagging how five-year-old Asics Skateboarding currently has a strong skate team and that New Balance Numeric has signed venerable skaters such as Andrew Reynolds. He added that a point of attraction for emerging indies such as Village PM and Last Resort AB is being skater-founded.
Palmer said that commitment to authenticity has helped New Balance Numeric attract lifestyle shoppers too, pointing out how Reynolds’ signature sneaker, the New Balance Numeric 933, has resonated with them.
“We’re just staying focused on our own goal and that’s to bring something different to the market, to support the best skaters, make videos and support our retailers,” he said.