It looks like Volcom sweaters are a must have in the Beckham boys’ wardrobe. There is something a little appealing about zipping up the hoodie all the way over your son’s head and we think you are going to start seeing these sweaters on boys everywhere. Well they are kinda cool.
Even Kate Hudson’s son Ryder is a fan, wearing his on a flight from the US to London today.
NIPPER Mini is the world’s first kids helmet with perfect fit and appealing skate and dirt halfshell
styling. TSG’s new Nipper is the first in-mold half-shell helmet for little children.
It offers perfect fit and ultimate protection even at the sides of a child’s super sensitive head.
The Nipper is the latest development of Swiss helmet expert TSG. After several years of
research and development, including both the intense analysis of children’s head shapes as
well as the adaptation of casting molds to their specific anatomic features, TSG proudly
presents a new kids helmet for spring 2011.
Flyweight design for sensible children’s heads The Nipper is designed using an in-mold manufacturing process: a solid polycarbonate outer
shell is fused with a shock-absorbing EPS inner shell. Thanks to this efficient manufacturing process, the helmet only weighs 195 g without sacrificing protection performance.
Safe and low fit The Nipper is made for children’s head sizes from 48 to 51 and can be used from the point of when children start to walk. It is the world’s first kids helmet of this size which truly fits without the need of an additional adjustment wheel at the back. Traditional kids helmets have to be re-adjusted every time, which increases the risk of adjustment failures and a negative influence on the safety aspects due to additional parts and pieces on the head.
SO if you have a crazy, adventurous, skater, biker, boarder, rider of any kind, child these new helmets are the business. They are currently available in 2 colours:
Click here for more information on TSG (Technical Safety Gear)
Last night I was lucky enough to be invited along to the Temper Trap show at the New York city SPIN magazine office space. Amazing semi-private gig! and a fantastic gift from co-sponsor VANS – a voucher for a pair of personally customized kicks!
Understandably this morning has been spent clicking around the VANS website matching and rematching colors and styles to design my very own colorway. I’m a huge VANS fan and must have had dozens in the past, but once I hit the “submit order” button I felt sure that these would most definitely be the coolest thus far!
There’re 4 classic styles to choose from starting as a plain white canvas, and although mine ended up being quite subtle in final design, your kids’ can be as wild as their little punkrock hearts desire!
Sure it’s nothing new as VANS has been doing customs since they started out (with the first shoes made to order and pick-up on the same day), but it’s SO much fun!
Definitely check it out, if only for a distraction.
Once just “the flying tomato”, now a household name through his near-flawless Olympic golds in snowboarding, Shaun White teamed up with retail giant Target in 2008 for a signature “action sport -inspired” clothing range. Presumably due to success, they have now expanded this to include footwear, on shelves in July.
“It’s been a lot of fun working with Target for the past few years on my clothing line,” said Shaun. “I’m excited to have the opportunity to bring some authentic skate shoes into the mix.”
We dropped in for a peek, and although they’re definately no Lakai or Emerica
Available at Target, of course, or online
A four-part insight into how to buy your kids skate shoes & clothing
they actually want!
Article edited & reproduced from the Source magazine article “Kids Skate Market”,
written by Barcelona’s MiniHipster scout.
Although itself influenced, at least back in the day, by other underground urban movements, there’s no denying the extent of influence that skateboarding has had, and continues to exert, on on modern street fashion! It’s always been a youth-orientated passion, but until relatively recently it has not been a youth-orientated market. Without doubt we’re now seeing previously dreamed-of growth in both passive interest and participation, as well as in the availability of kids-specific product. But with skateboarding being far more ubiquitous than either snowboarding or surfing, predictions and generalisations can be more difficult to make; skate is represented in all social and economic demographics with a consistent geographic spread in Europe, Asia and North America.
SOFTGOODS FOR THE HARD MONEY
The development of kids gear from the skate brands we love is definitely abundant and exciting. And these offerings are comprehensive! We can even see skate-inspired product available for newborns… Who would have guessed this when Vision Streetwear and Etnies started the balls rolling all those years ago?
DVS, for example, has a kids program that offers a selection of styles from the main line, the size run of which starts as low as K11 and goes up to 4.5. They also have a Toddler offering that goes from new born to K10.5 (including a Daewon promodel! shown above left). Quiksilver Baby offers clothes from 3 to 24 months, enabling Quiksilver Kids ranges to dress our juniors from ages 3 months up to 16 years.
And there’s functional technology coming out now too! After seeing an absence of developmentally sound, proper fitting, affordable, long-lasting footwear in the industry, etnies’ kids product management team together with the Sole Technology Institute Laboratory recently did some in-depth research on kids shoes and the needs for size, fit and flexibility specifications that are important for new walkers or skaters. The research showed them that the old shoes were too narrow and stiff and made like a typical athletic adult shoe instead of designed specifically for children. Etnies’ new shoes for SS09 are wider to accommodate chubby toddler/ kids feet, open wide to make the entry easier and are much more flexible to allow for more movement. They also introduced moulded heels as although toddlers’ feet are chubby, their heels are still narrow.
On top of this Etnies’ new “Grow With Me” program allows kids to rock their favorite kicks longer with a removable component that adjusts show size. This also reduces the financial strain that parents face when raising a growing child. Brilliant!
A SOFT SPOT FOR HARDGOODS
More and more we’re seeing kid-specific mini boards appearing on the market, and not just some cut-down plank pressed from a regular deck mould, but dedicated boards especially made for the youngens, complete with thought-out and tested lengths and widths, and most importantly a functional wheel base. Veteran pro skater Rodney Clarke, who has his own mini pro model board, runs a weekend skate school at his local Pioneer Skate Park in St.Albans (London) and conducts a skate education program within the national education system, attests that “Decent mini boards and better range of sizes have got to be the way forward!”
Mini models are available from even the smaller European brands, such as Kama from the UK, who has always produced a proper little kids board that you can be proud to buy your son or daughter. Adam Wood of Kama says “I think it’s important to offer this smaller size. I worked for 7 years in 2 skate shops and saw countless kids on huge decks that they could barely control.”
And, of course, many of the larger international brands now offer mini boards, even from the major leaguers such as Plan B (who’s affiliated truck brand Silver also does a mini truck for the kiddies!). Element go as far as to offer 4 sizes in a specially designed kids range called ‘Twiggs’. “Twig bards are pressed in a mold that has been scaled down from the featherlight mold,” informs Sally Braid. “It makes our featherlight construction even thinner resulting in the thinnest and lightest board available.” Perhaps you could have actually gone pro if such custom learning tools were available to you at a young age…
See also:
Part 1, “Style breakdown: The Takedown!”
Still to come:
Part 3, “Who foots the bill?”, and “Marketing: to who for whom?”
Part 4, “Ensuring the future”
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Our Barcelona scout is a regular contributor to the Source, the European boardsports industry magazine. This article has been edited & reproduced from the February issue #38 (www.boardsportsource.com)A four-part insight into how to buy your kids skate shoes & clothing
they actually want!
Article edited & reproduced from the Source magazine article “Kids Skate Market”,
written by Barcelona’s MiniHipster scout.
Although itself influenced, at least back in the day, by other underground urban movements, there’s no denying the extent of influence that skateboarding has had, and continues to exert, on on modern street fashion! It’s always been a youth-orientated passion, but until relatively recently it has not been a youth-orientated market. Without doubt we’re now seeing previously dreamed-of growth in both passive interest and participation, as well as in the availability of kids-specific product. But with skateboarding being far more ubiquitous than either snowboarding or surfing, predictions and generalisations can be more difficult to make; skate is represented in all social and economic demographics with a consistent geographic spread in Europe, Asia and North America.
(image courtesy of Vans)
Kids, for the purposes of this report, are children 14 years and below. On average, the kids skate market occupies around 25% of the skate market as a whole – brand estimates are between 5-10% for footwear and apparel, and ranging from 30-70% for hardgoods. However, one point that unites all brands contributing to this report is the positive growth trend for the future, even given the current gloomy economic climate. An almost unanimous response was also the continued attention and dedication required (& desired) to support the growth of a strong kids skate demographic. Yay!
STYLE BREAKDOWN: THE TAKEDOWN!
At a ratio of 6:1 from brand response to this report, “takedown” of adult designs to kids sizes is the most common approach to building a kids range. “We create many of our styles… in exact takedowns of adult styles,” says Karin Muehlemann of Vans, “but we also inject a lot of fun kids-only patterns into the line with animal prints, hearts, skulls that kids can’t get enough of.” On the other hands, Ally Barr of Independent
Independent Bar/Cross
Sally Braid of Element
Jenny Ahnell of Etnies suggests that “People that grew up with Etnies want their children to be outfitted in the same shoes and brands. We are seeing a greater increase season on season.”
Following in the favorite footwear of their fathers & mothers…?
Adio Taro (left), C1RCA Reaper (right)
So is the design takedown simply a “mini me” obsession of over-the-hill skate designers with a secret maternal desire, is it a matter of design budget logic, or something more complex?
Marie Stephan of Quiksilver offers: “In the past, trends appeared first in the Adults sector and were taking a few seasons to reach the junior market… Nowadays, trends appear almost simultaneously in both the Men and Junior markets – kids want to have the same offer as the adults, as they’re identifying with them. The junior market is changing fast and brands need to be reactive.”
Our little ankle-biters are more sophisticated than we may have thought!
Matix Asher full-zip girls hoodies, Jordan (left) in and From There (right)
So what can we expect in terms of cuts for the SS09?
It would seem more of the rockstar same, almost unanimously.
KR3W confirms “We’re maintaining our slim and regular fits in kids denim”, in unison with Ally Barr of Independent
So there you have it…
Still to come:
Part 2, “Softgoods for the hard sell”, and “A soft spot for Hardgoods”
Part 3, “Who foots the bill?”, and “Marketing: to who for whom?”
Part 4, “Ensuring the future”
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Our Barcelona scout is a regular contributor to the Source, the European boardsports industry magazine. This article has been edited & reproduced from the February issue #38 (www.boardsportsource.com)
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