Sky Brown’s dreams never end

Despite the rainy Australian weather, when Sky Brown hops onto our video call, she’s not long been out of the ocean. While surfing isn’t the sixteen year old’s primary love — that position is, of course, reserved for skateboarding — this close second is a way to decompress before diving into a booked and busy season. “I’m taking care of myself a little bit,” she says. “I’ve got a heavy summer. Back to back comps.” Despite her age, Brown is no stranger to a hectic lifestyle. After gaining traction from a viral video her father shared of the then-four year old ‘rippin’ the ramp, she became the youngest Vans US Open participant at eight, before making her professional debut at eleven. Since then, Brown has nabbed an Olympic medal for Team GB (despite growing up between the US and Japan, Brown’s father is British), racked up millions of followers on her social media pages and even written a children’s book.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Brown has done more in her sixteen years than most people hope to in a lifetime. And she has some of the world’s most established brands backing her. Shortly after going pro, the skateboarder snagged a sponsorship deal with Nike, becoming the sportswear company’s youngest athlete. She’s also on Redbull’s roster, as well as working with high-fashion big dogs like Chanel on a skateboarding-themed pop-up store in Covent Garden to celebrate the launch of their Rouge Coco lipstick collection. While Chanel and skateboarding might seem like an unlikely pairing, Brown affirms that the throughline is self-expression. “For me,” she says, “skateboarding is a way that I express myself, and I feel like make-up is about expressing yourself and having your own style — being unique.”

With all her achievements in tow, ‘unique’ is certainly an apt way to describe the teenager, who demonstrated an equally rare resilience after suffering a severe injury in 2020. “If you skateboard, you’re going to fall,” Brown says. She’s not really just talking about sports, though — whatever comes her way, Brown isn’t afraid to take the risk.

Amber Rawlings: You’re balancing a lot — skateboarding, surfing, writing. How do you manage it all?

Sky Brown: Honestly, for me, it’s easy because I’ve been doing it for so long now. It’s just part of my routine.

AR: You’ve said before that your approach to sport is that it’s like a show. How did you develop that philosophy?

SB: Where I really started to love skateboarding was at Venice Beach, and there were always people watching me there and I loved that — it really hyped me up and made me want to make the crowd go wild and put on a good show for them.