Converse

Converse makes shoes, not decks — if you landed here looking for wood, there is none. And there is a second thing worth clearing up. The brand that matters to skateboarding isn’t quite the century-old basketball Converse; it’s CONS, the skate programme the company started in 2009. The Chuck Taylor and the One Star are there, but rebuilt: same silhouette, different shoe.

History

Converse was founded in February 1908 in Boston by Marquis Mills Converse, and for decades it lived off basketball and the Chuck Taylor All Star. In July 2003 Nike bought it for US$309 million. Six years later, in 2009, the skate programme launched under the CONS name with a first squad of ambassadors: Kenny Anderson, Anthony Pappalardo, Nick Trapasso, Sammy Baca, Ethan Fowler, Raymond Molinar and Rune Glifberg. Jason Jessee and Mike Anderson joined in 2012, and by 2014 the roster also had Zered Bassett, Jake Johnson, Eli Reed, Ben Raemers, Julian Davidson, Sage Elsesser, Sean Pablo and a very young Louie Lopez. In October 2023 CONS sponsored the “Skateboard” exhibition at London’s Design Museum — the companion to Jonathan Olivares’ Phaidon book — complete with a Betongpark miniramp that stayed installed in the museum and half the team skating it.

The team and the videos

The current line-up revolves around Louie Lopez, Alexis Sablone and Raney Beres, plus the generation that came through “Evergreen” (2024): Shane Farber, Ariana Spencer, Eddie Cernicky, Zion Effs and Brian O’Dwyer. In 2025 Romel Torres came aboard, and the “Bad for the Bones” edit introduced Ibu Sanyang and Lucien Genand. The European side of the brand has largely been filmer Ben Chadourne’s work: “Purple” (2018), premiered within days in New York, London and Paris, then “Case Study” (2019) and “Evergreen”, a tight twenty minutes co-directed with Ryan Lee.

The shoes

The skate range is built on three house silhouettes rebuilt for skating: the One Star Pro, the Chuck Taylor All Star Pro and, since 2014, a skateable version of the Weapon. The shoe that explains the project best is the Louie Lopez Pro from January 2019, CONS’ first completely new silhouette in a long time: vulcanised, suede upper, seamless toe box in the area grip tape eats, and Zoom Air footbeds. The AS-1 Pro, designed with Alexis Sablone, followed in 2023. These are low, thin-profile shoes with direct board feel — the opposite end of the scale from a thick cupsole.

Who it’s for

If you want a classic, thin vulc with good board feel and you like the Converse look, CONS is one of the more honest options out there. If you need cushioning for big drops and a three-storey sole, this isn’t your brand. And if you came here looking for a regular Chuck Taylor, check that it says “Pro”: the standard one was never built to skate. Line it up against the rest in the shoe catalog.