Es

éS makes skate shoes, not decks — if you landed here looking for wood, what’s here is cupsoles and STI foam. It started in 1995 inside Pierre-André Sénizergues’ orbit, the Frenchman behind etnies, and the reason is very specific. He explains it in Free Skate Mag: he wanted to fill the shop shoe wall with different brands, and “guys like Sal Barbier, Muska, and Eric Koston wanted something more technical, so we started éS.” That’s the brand in one line: a technical shoe for fast-footed skating.

History

In 1996 Sénizergues created Sole Technology and gathered etnies (1986), éS (1995), Emerica (1996) and the snowboard brand ThirtyTwo under it. Thrasher’s own back-issue archive already lists an éS ad in the December 1996 issue. The brand owned the turn of the century with the Accel and the Koston 1 and, above all, with “Menikmati” (2000), directed by Fred Mortagne and starring Eric Koston, Tom Penny, Ronnie Creager, Bob Burnquist and Rick McCrank, with breakout parts from Arto Saari and Rodrigo TX. It’s still one of the most cited full-lengths in skateboarding, and the brand has run a twenty-fifth-anniversary campaign around it.

Then came the fall. Nike SB went after Paul Rodriguez and Koston, both éS riders, and once it got them the brand had no star power left. In mid-2012 éS announced a hiatus. It returned in 2014, and Jenkem gave the comeback a rough ride: three models in limited colour packs, no team, no video, nothing going back into skateboarding. Over time the house rebuilt: there’s a team again, and in May 2024 the Swiss Nidecker Group bought éS along with etnies, Emerica and ThirtyTwo, with Sénizergues staying on as CEO. The brand is now based in Truckee, California.

The team

The current roster, which the brand calls “The Collective,” is TJ Rogers, Wade Desarmo, Jonny Hernandez and Louie Jones; Tom Penny and Ronnie Creager are kept on as legends. The list of people who have ridden for it reads like a snapshot of two decades of skateboarding: Eric Koston, Chad Muska, Paul Rodriguez, Rick McCrank, Arto Saari, Bob Burnquist, PJ Ladd, John Rattray, Justin Eldridge, Rodrigo TX and Nyjah Huston.

The shoes

The éS shoe is the Accel, and that isn’t up for debate: the brand keeps a whole collection built around it. Next to it sit the Imprint — including a Kevlar version — the Creager, the Quattro, the Sophisto, the Swift and the Two Nine 8. The house build is a cupsole with STI foam, the same technology family that comes out of the lab Sole Technology opened in 2003. In 2023 the brand reissued Chad Muska’s first pro model, the shoe that set the late-’90s look.

Who it’s for

If you want support, cushioning and durability, and you don’t mind a shoe with some bulk to it, éS is a very solid buy — the Accel is the obvious starting point. If you want the thinnest, most flexible shoe possible for board feel, the house doesn’t go there. And if you need a new model every season, it isn’t for you either: éS releases few things and releases them slowly. Line it up against the rest in the shoe catalog.