LAKAI Limited Footwear

Remember the days when Stephen King was still shocking and splatter movies as we know them today were not yet invented? It was at that time that an early basis of the label Lakai was laid. In the early eighties, Fritz Kiersch's 'Children of the Corn' was shot. In that movie, the children in a small rural town murdered all of the local adults older than 19, celebrating a bloody pseudo-Christian cult of an evil being lurking in the corn fields they called “He Who Walks Behind the Rows”. About a decade later, the movie inspired skate pro Mike Carroll to reinvent himself with a new name to make the ladies remember him: He called himself Malachai, after one of the movie’s characters.

Cut to 1999, where again, Mike was in a similar naming dilemma with his and Rick Howard's footwear enterprise. After initiating Girl Skateboards and also Chocolate Skateboards in 1993, they felt they owed it to skateboarding and skateboarders to apply the same high quality and design standards they introduced with Girl to footwear. Thinking back to the success of his Malachai moniker, Mike suggested the name to his homies. They liked it, however, the name had to be shortened in order to properly fit it on tongue labels, heel moustaches and of course, t-shirts. Mike said: “What about Lakai?” and as they say, the rest is history. Today, Lakai is one of the most credible skate core labels with a swell team, including Scott Johnston, Marc Johnson, Brandon Biebel, and since early 2006, street style legend Eric Koston. After his year long sponsorship with éS Eric had left the company to ride for Lakai. In October, his first two shoes will appear which, according to himself, will come with a completely revolutionized cup-sole. You can also watch Eric in the “Fully Flared” video, Lakai’s first video ever featuring all of their riders which is premiering in November.

Although Lakai started as the footwear segment of Girl, it meanwhile has become an independent label, expanding its collection from footwear to t-shirts, accessories and pants. Although especially the tees stand out by their socko graphics, what Lakai primarily stands for is still the shoes – the signature series, the Select with its vulcanized sole and the Art Dump Series, the latter adding one of the most interesting facets to the label. The Art Dump is Girl’s in-house creative team, consisting of Andy Jenkins, Tony Larson, Rob Abeyta and Andy Mueller. With Andy Jenkins being the art director, each artist has his specific field he is responsible for. Apart from being involved in numerous art, design and graphic related projects – together with Jennifer Pitt he also runs the design project The Quiet Life – Andy Mueller is essentially the designer of Lakai Footwear. Andy’s graphics are fun, colourful and playful, even childlike in some parts. Together with the tapered, flash-like logo they have become Lakai’s hallmark. No cult, no murder, only rarely a skull. Andy’s artworks do not remind of the name’s origin and that creature walking behind the rows. It is also them, however, that’ll keep Lakai backing up the pros. [jlm]

www.lakai.com | www.theartdump.com
www.girlskateboards.com | www.chocolateskateboards.com