Girl Skateboards

Girl Skateboards was founded in 1993 in Los Angeles by Rick Howard, Mike Carroll, Spike Jonze, and Andy Jenkins as a deliberately-art-anchored skate-deck-and-streetwear brand specifically focused on what the founders described as 'a deliberately-LA-skate-and-art-anchored skate-vocabulary.' The brand has been the sister-brand to Chocolate Skateboards (founded by the same team a year later in 1994) and one of the defining post-1993 American-anchored 'art-skate' brands operating through the broader Crailtap parent company. The Girl Skateboards vocabulary settled around several recurring elements: the iconic Girl Skateboards skate-deck programme featuring shifting seasonal graphic-design references (the brand has worked with artists including Geoff McFetridge — the brand's iconic Girl-Logo designer — Tony Larson, Kevin Lyons, and dozens of others on deck-graphic programs), the iconic Girl-Logo geometric-emblem (Geoff McFetridge's 1993 graphic-design — one of the most-recognised post-1990 skate-graphic-design works), the Girl team-pro signature deck programme (with deck-signatures from Sean Malto, Rick McCrank, Brandon Biebel, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the broader Girl team-rider roster), and the broader Girl Skateboards apparel programme. The brand is independent and held by Howard, Carroll, Jonze, and Jenkins through Crailtap (the Los Angeles-based skate-industry parent company that also operates Chocolate Skateboards, Lakai Limited Footwear, Fourstar, Royal Trucks, and various other defining post-1990 skate-industry brands). Girl Skateboards distributes through skate-shop wholesale globally — including Supreme, Slam Jam, Civilist Berlin, FTC, the broader US-and-European skate-shop network, and the Japanese skate-specialty retailers Beams, Ships, United Arrows, and the broader Japanese skate-specialty distribution. The brand has been one of the defining post-1993 American-anchored 'art-skate' brands.