Tag: Skateboard History
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Brigitta Dittmann
If you live in Europe, especially Germany, you’ll be well aware of the iconic skateboarding company, Titus Skateboards which is a family business based in Münster. You can read about the company history on their website and their evolution from starting a small shop importing skateboard products, producing a popular magazine, followed by a sponsored…
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Check it Out magazine
In the mid-1990s, a group of Brazilian girls came together with a unique vision that would evolve into the publication Check it Out, which would have a profound effect on women skaters internationally. Photo: the cover of the very first zine from 1995 next to the creator, Liza grinding a mini-ramp in 1999 It all…
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Isabelle Fried
With Mother’s Day approaching, I was reminded of Isabelle Fried (Caudle) who received some media attention in the early 2000s for her ability to juggle her love of skateboarding with raising a family and being a high school math teacher. Photo: Isabelle was featured in an advert for the female-focused skateboarding magazine called Push edited…
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Jill Viggiani
In the early 2000s, Jill Viggiani was a regular at the Talent indoor skatepark in Burlington, Vermont and had been vetted by members of the Burton snowboarding team as having potential for being sponsored by Emily Oliver’s skateboard company, Cherry Skateboards (2003-2009) which was a female-focused enterprise. Emily explained that she had connections at Burton…
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Beatriz Saens
Skateboarding in Mexico in the late 1970s was gaining in popularity among youth, with skateparks opening and companies like Pepsi sponsoring a local team, including a girl named Beatriz Saens. I had heard about Beatriz because Stephanie Fernández, who was the first Mexican girl’s National champion in 1979, mentioned skating with her. The two girls…
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Jaime Reyes
Jaime Reyes has been inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame (2025) and her impact on the progression of women’s street skating, especially in the 1990s is irrefutable. Jaime’s early sponsors included Real, Rookie, Zoo York, Gallaz, Alpha Numeric, Supreme, Venture trucks, Swiss bearings, Stealth Wheels and even Evian water. Over time, as some companies…
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Denise Barter
I am a big advocate for more women in leadership roles throughout the skateboarding industry. Denise Downs Barter (who now goes by Denise Pehrsson) is a great example from the 1970s of a person who garnered a lot of respect from skaters of that generation for her activity in sports management. In Vicki Vicker’s six-page…
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Thrasher Interview
When the editor of Thrasher reached out and offered to feature the archive in an upcoming issue, I was nervous considering that, the magazine wasn’t exactly an ally for women in decades past. And while I don’t condemn the publication, there have been moments in its history that demonstrate just how fragile and insecure the…
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NYC 1980s : Stana & Jessica
In 2010, an epic book was published called Full Bleed: New York City Skateboard Photography (MTV Press), edited by Alex Corporan, Andre Razo and Ivory Serra, followed up by a 10th Anniversary edition in 2022 with an additional 96 pages. While the skaters were predominantly male (with the exception of the Rookie team and Betty…
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Dee Urquhart
Dee Urquhart (Ross) could be called the Scottish godmother of skateboarding considering the role she played, alongside her late husband, Iain Urquhart, an award-winning architect who designed the famous Livi skatepark, which opened in 1981. Photo: Dee performing an ollie grab to fakie, from her personal collection. It was thanks to Iain’s second cousin, Parisa…
Womxn Skateboard History 