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Rookie Skateboards-NYC
by Michael Cervieri
Walk up a musty stairwell off New York's Canal Street and you'll find some interesting faces in the world of skateboarding. Among books on Buddhist iconography and New York City history, Rookie Skateboards designs decks and women's apparel in a Chinatown loft. The two-year-old company is part of burgeoning skate scene challenging industry trends set by their more established California counterparts.
"We don't make clothing," says Elksa Sandor, one of three women who founded Rookie, [that matches] the industry's ideal for girls which is usually whatever guys want to see their girlfriends wearing."
While there's something decidedly feminine about Rookie's workspace--jazz plays on the radio, snapshots of friends line exposed brick walls, various trinkets are placed artfully about--Sandor is quick to point out that she and her partners look beyond gender as they establish a foothold in this decidedly male dominated industry. "We don't really advertise the girlie thing, none of the graphics are particularly girlie. As far as the clothing goes," she explains, "it's just casual streetwear and technical sportswear. We don't want to pigeonhole ourselves."
Culture, though, stays at the forefront of their minds. Highly conscious of New York as a city of immigrants, Sandor and her two partners--Jung Kyak and Katherine Lyons--read about Ellis Island when thinking about potential names for their company. "In one of the books, immigrants were referred to as rookies. That definitely fit because we considered ourselves such rookies. It seemed to be a very kind of humble name for ourselves."
Still, in an industry that has historically had poor female representation, where trade shows team with testosterone masses (and their bikini clad display women) trying to develop the next girlie thing to market to women, Rookie has broken stereotypes. Gone are neon "Girl Power" products. Instead, they color their clothes in military camouflage and darker hues. Their decks feature graphics of Mohammed Ali, city skyskapes, and blurred subway trains. "We're not putting butterflies and flowers on our boards," says Sandor. "We're doing it how we want to do it and in the way we want to do it. Some people aren't going to like it, but those are the people who aren't going to like any change whatsoever.
"Even though I'm proud of it," she continues, "I don't feel the need to make a point of being a woman. What I'm doing is--in the end--about skating, and not about being a guy or a girl."
With growing sales and a 10-year-licensing deal with Hardcore Holdings, Rookie Skateboards will influence the sport in their own enlightened way. They are, even now, rookies only in name.
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