Emerica

Emerica makes skate shoes, not decks — if you landed here looking for wood, what’s here is vulcs and cupsoles. It launched in 1996 inside Sole Technology, Pierre-André Sénizergues’ house, and it was created with a very specific brief. He explains it in Free Skate Mag: some of his riders, “like Jamie Thomas and Andrew Reynolds, were a bit more rock n’ roll, so we started Emerica.” That’s been the tone since day one, and the brand still signs off on it: “This is Emerica. This is Skateboarding.”

History

Thrasher’s back-issue archive already lists an Emerica ad in the August 1996 issue, the brand’s first year. Since then its story is better told through videos than through balance sheets. “This Is Skateboarding” (2003) is the cornerstone: a crew of skate rats living together in a Hollywood Hills mansion with no obligation beyond filming, which Jenkem holds up as the perfect example of the early-2000s golden era. Twenty years later the brand threw an anniversary party and Jenkem went back for it. Then came “Stay Gold,” the video in which Leo Romero invented an entire subgenre by grinding up handrails, and later the “MADE” series, with the first chapter in 2013 — sold at whatever price the buyer chose, minimum one dollar — and the second in 2016.

On the business side, Emerica has always shared a house with etnies and éS. In May 2024 the Swiss Nidecker Group bought all three plus ThirtyTwo, with Sénizergues staying on as CEO while the Sole Technology name is gradually retired.

The team

The roster the brand currently lists is Leo Romero, Kevin “Spanky” Long, Justin “Figgy” Figueroa, Jon Dickson, Stu Kirst, Matisse Banc and Patrick Franklin. The alumni list is half the canon of 2000s skateboarding: Andrew Reynolds — who left in 2019 and closed an era — Jamie Thomas, Heath Kirchart, Brandon Westgate, Jerry Hsu, Ed Templeton, Bryan Herman, Collin Provost, Braden Hoban, Erick Winkowski, Rob Maatman, Dakota Servold, Kevin Baekkel, Victor Aceves and Chris Wimer. Sweden’s Pontus Alv also rode for Emerica before starting Polar.

The shoes

Emerica builds on its G6 platform, used across most of the current line, and its most recognisable products are the team models: Spanky’s KSL — now on its third version — plus the Figgy, the Romero, the Moca, the Phocus and the Winkowski. Over the years it has collaborated with Baker (Reynolds G6 Vulc, Figgy Dose, Wino G6) and with Shake Junt. The house build is a vulcanised shoe with reinforcement across the ollie zone, made to survive rails and stairs rather than to look pretty.

Who it’s for

If you skate street hard, wear through the same spot on every shoe and want a reinforced vulc with real board feel, Emerica is one of the best options on the market and it isn’t priced out of reach. If you want a tall, heavily cushioned cupsole for transition and big ramps, you’ll find fewer of those here than at other brands. Line it up against the rest in the shoe catalog.