Skateboarding’s Favourite Polymath, Alexis Sablone
Images by Jonathan Mehring
It’s really easy to blow it in skating.
In fact, when within the industry, it feels as though the culture sets you up to do so, and without a good head on your shoulders, you’ll likely get lost in the thick of it as so many have. Alexis Sablone is not one of those people. She is an architect, a designer, an illustrator, skater, artist, and producer, and out of all of us baggy pant wearing, rent scraping, swellbow icing, lonely, stinky, skate fiends, is likely one of the best. The creme. A point to aspire toward. On top of that, she’s just got one of my favorite heelflips of all time, a well-earned, well-revered career that spans decades, and a trick selection that is both challenging and fun to watch.
Alexis Sablone has teamed up with Converse Cons to create the AS-1 Pro, a new professional skateboarding shoe, which we think is very cool, and for me personally, a good opportunity to have a conversation with one of my heroes - an opportunity that I seized.
In a case of perfect and blessed timing, Cons ANZ are holding a launch event for the AS-1 Pro in Melbourne this weekend, wherein they are celebrating the AS-1’s crash landing on the market with sessions at a temporary, one-weekend-only indoor park meant to bring bits of NYC skating to the Southern Hemisphere, probably some free things (beers, though maybe, shoes if you cross your fingers), and the chance to get Cons’ eyes on your backside flip, which, for a young skater, is quite an prospect. It is free, open to the public, but with limited spots, so RSVP here.
Anyway, back to the business we are all here for, which is our quick chat with Alexis about the shoe. We talked about the shoe, her inspirations, and the elusive, abstract, but ever-crucial, LDF.
The first question I have is a very generic one, which is, how does it feel? How are you feeling about all this? How's it going?
It's going well, I feel like there has been so much leading up to this, and I’ve been working on it for so long that now that it’s happening, it hasn’t really had time to sink in, but it's really exciting. I think that it's obviously something that skaters dream of. It's an honor and kind of surreal for me. I got to design the shoe with Cons and they really let me do what I wanted with it, so yeah, I’m excited.
What do you look for in a good skate shoe? What are your essentials?
I think it's split between certain functional essentials, and what I want aesthetically. What I want to see when I look down. I want it to look a certain way. I need that toe to be a certain length, I'm really picky about that. I kind of like certain color schemes, and lean toward a nineties skate shoe, but also something that you don't wanna take off as soon as you're done skating. I wanted to make something very wearable.
What are your functional priorities?
From a functional standpoint, you know, I'm really picky about the grippiness of the sole, and the flick. I wanted to make a shoe that is just right for me. Like when I try a new shoe, I try and wiggle it back and forth on the griptape, and if it's not sticky enough right away, I won't skate that shoe. The AS-1 Pro is a cupsole and cupsole shoes are, in my opinion, more slippery, but this one feels just right.
How do you think that your creative side, not to do with skating, has influenced the creation of the shoe?
I mean, I couldn't point to references or anything. I think I’m a creative person, I usually think by drawing I draw everything. I’ve designed things at this point from small scale objects to large sculptures to now, shoes, but the process is really dependent on what I’m doing. Each project is really unique and there are different things that you’re trying to solve for. I mean, the creative process generally is pretty similar across the board in that I’m kind of guided by intuition, but looking to arrive at something really specific that depends on what the project is. Through the process of just drawing and redrawing, tweaking things here and there until you finally arrive at the thing you wanted the whole time, but you didn’t know it.
What was your editing process like for this?
To me it's kind of like designing a big sculpture or something like that. The process is kind of similar where you keep drawing, and then there are parts of what you draw that keep reappearing in every version, and so you're like, ‘oh, maybe there's something to that that must be like something central.’ and you change all the stuff around it, and keep going until you get to a point where there's nothing you want to add or remove.
So it’s a much more intuitive design and editing process rather than measuring toecaps and rubber densities?
Oh, no, I was definitely measuring everything. Toe caps, thicknesses of materials, all that. With something as small but essential as a shoe, millimeters make all the difference. It’s like drawing a face. If you move an eye this way just a little bit, it’s a totally different face. You have to get really precise. Otherwise you’ll just be sketching without knowing what those sketches mean.
Look Down Factor is strong with this shoe. The LDF is pretty crucial and makes or breaks a session, but that really comes down to what that individual skater is into. What’s your thing? What do you think is cool?
Like style, inspiration, stuff? Or like design, like mantra or something?
I mean, generally, I guess. What are some of your broader inspirations or things that get you hyped creatively?
You know, it's like bits and pieces from everywhere. I think that that's something interesting about being a skater, you're always looking at every detail to try and find a new spot or something. I think that’s very similar to design and aesthetics, picking up on details and really finding what you think is cool. As far as that stuff goes, I get excited about everything from packing on candy wrappers to graphic novels, certain photos or films. There are architects that I’m really into like Marcel Breuer.
I don’t know if there’s something specific that I can point to, but with the aesthetic of this shoe in mind, the nineties comeback in skating has been cool, even though that can sometimes be too much, or derivative, or like, you know, whatever. I think that for me, the nineties are a nostalgic time. That's like a golden era of skateboarding. With this shoe, there's a kind of like a nineties New York feeling, you know. To me, that’s the ideal in terms of fashion, style - that's still something that I really like. But yeah, I don't know if that answered your question.
RSVP to the Cons event in Melbourne, here.