Hydroponic

Hydroponic is from Barcelona and dates back to 2002. It didn’t start as a board brand: it began putting out loud, funny T-shirt collections and only later added skate, longboard, surfskate and everything else a shop wall needs. Spanish magazine Staf, which has covered the brand for decades, put it this way in 2017 when Hydroponic turned fifteen: it was “back in the far-off 2002” that the label first showed its irreverent tee collections to a lucky few. It is one of very few Spanish brands that has held on this long without ever leaving its own small corner of the market.

History

Clothing came first, skateboarding after. From the mid-2010s the catalogue carried its own decks, wheels, bearings and completes, plus a genuinely serious longboard and cruiser line covering downhill and dancing shapes. In 2018 came the brand’s most visible collab: Mortadelo y Filemón x Hydroponic, built around Francisco Ibáñez’s comic characters for the 60th anniversary of Spain’s best-known secret agents. The capsule ran decks, wheels, bearings and completes in winter 2018, then tees and socks the following summer. In January 2020 the brand gave 10% of that month’s online sales to Australia’s koala hospital during the bushfires.

The team

The skate team has always been local. In early 2020 Staf listed the full roster — Fran Martínez, Edu Martín, Roman Lishchinskyy, Marcus Fazzari, Aaron Vega and Sergi Arenas — gathered at the La Bòbila DIY in Badalona to welcome Cristian Sánchez. Fran Martínez is from Mataró and Aaron Vega from Calella; Sergio Guzmán was the regular filmer of that era. Those years produced parts like Fran Martínez’s Lost & Found (2018) and Marcus Fazzari’s Hola Barcelona, shot almost entirely in the city. Photographer Helena Pintor shot the deck catalogues and the riders.

Decks, longboards and surfskates

The skate decks are seven-ply Canadian maple with epoxy glue, with series that come back season after season, like the Cut Ply. The Hole model adds a fibreglass layer between plies and is aimed at technical street riding. The longboard side has its own names — Sherpa, Dragon, Ariki, the Vicky dancing series — and the surfskates run a front truck with no spring, which opens the turn right up. There are also built completes, clothing, backpacks and sunglasses: Hydroponic works more like a full house than a pure deck brand.

Who it’s for

It makes sense if you want a regional brand with sensible pricing and a broad catalogue that covers everything from a first board to a seafront surfskate. If you’re after a pro deck brand with an international team and an annual video, this isn’t it. Line it up against the rest in the deck catalog and in the European brands guide.