Lakai

Lakai makes skate shoes, not decks — if you landed here looking for wood, what you’ll find is vulcanised soles and cupsoles. Mike Carroll and Rick Howard started it in 1999 in Torrance, California, the same pair who had founded Girl Skateboards in 1993 after walking out of World Industries. The idea came up one night in April 1999 at Largo, a comedy club in Los Angeles, when Tim Gavin suggested to Howard that they build their own shoe brand instead of skating for somebody else’s.

History

Cairo Foster was the first official team rider, contacted in August 1999. The debut line landed in May 2000 with five models: Howard, Carroll, Cohort, Clay and Worthy. Distribution kept moving — Podium until 2011, Girl Distribution until 2014, then HUF under Renegade Brands, and in 2017 TSI Holdings as part of the HUF Worldwide sale — but Carroll and Howard were still the ones steering the brand. That ended in October 2024: the fund Inversal bought Lakai and on the 29th let both founders go, along with the entire skate team. Carroll put it plainly: they were fired for refusing to cut the team. The brand still trades and still sells shoes, but under new ownership and with a new roster.

Fully Flared and the videos

“Fully Flared” (2007) is why half the world knows the name. It premiered on 16 November 2007 at UCLA’s Royce Hall after four years of filming, directed by Ty Evans, Spike Jonze and Cory Weincheque. The intro — riders landing tricks in slow motion while explosions go off around them, scored by M83 — is one of the most imitated sequences in skate video history. It won Best Video at the 2007 Transworld Skateboarding Awards, and Guy Mariano, back after years out of sight, took Best Street and Best Video Part. Before it came “Beware of the Flare” (2002); after it, “The Flare” (2017), directed mainly by Federico Vitetta and premiered at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, and “Bubble” (2023). The cast along the way included Eric Koston, Marc Johnson, Anthony Pappalardo, Mike Mo Capaldi, Lucas Puig, Danny Brady, Vincent Alvarez and Riley Hawk.

The shoes

The current range is low-profile and street-minded: Manchester, Cambridge XLK, Telford Low, Essex, Conrad, Aran and the Griffin. Lakai has always leaned on thin vulcanised soles and direct board feel; reviewing the brand’s Independent collab, Sidewalk singled out the one-piece toe cap — no seam to blow out in the main wear zone — and the Luxlite insole. The current team, already assembled under the new owners, is Chris Joslin, Roman Hager, Bastien Salabanzi, Nassim Lachhab and Evon Martinez.

Who it’s for

If you want a classic, thin, no-nonsense skate shoe, Lakai still makes one. Just know what you’re buying: the company that made “Fully Flared” and the company selling shoes today share a logo but not owners or riders. If that matters to you, factor it in. Line it up against the rest in the shoe catalog.