CHUFFED SKATES – FROM AUSTRALIA TO THE SKATE WORLD!

  The unstoppable growth of roller skating has been taking the sport to new places; from roller skating’s re-activation in North America in the hands of various skate teams and the OG skaters who kept the sport alive, to the phenomenon that was the creation of CIB that spread worldwide and brought people, countries, cities and smaller communities together. Roller Skaters are multiplying worldwide now and the need to acquire skates, gear and hardware is growing faster than ever!

Coming from a small and isolated community, I understand what it is like not to have the access to resources and the variety of hardware to keep skating. Having this conversation with Samantha Trayhurn aka @marmaladeslam back in the day when she would visit Colombia, we always agreed that for skaters, not having the accessibility to quality gear makes them appreciate skating in a different way and we set a goal to somehow put smaller communities on the radar so they too could have the opportunity to achieve their skating goals and passions.

Well, Sam did exactly this but didn’t stopped there, after committing to producing audio-visual projects that portrayed skating in Australia along with local skaters she decided to create her own roller skate brand with her friends in her motherland to support their community and build a company that suited their vision within the roller skate industry.

We are super excited to talk to Sam and get to know Chuffed Skates!

Hi Sam!! Let's start with a little Chuffed introduction and how it was born.

Chuffed Skates was born from an idea that I had about what an ideal roller skate company would look like. For many years me and my friends had talked about what we would do if we owned a skate brand, and I started to wonder what would happen if I actually did it. Once I finished studying my PhD in creative writing, I was trying to decide what to do with my life, and decided to commit to making that idea a reality. It took a lot of research and work in the beginning of course, and as I don't have a background in running a business, I have learned a lot along the way.

What would you say was the main motivation to create a roller skate brand based in Australia?

At the time I started the brand it was really hard to get quality and affordable skates in Australia. Most of the big brands had shortages, and there just wasn't enough skates to fuel the demand. Also, Australia is really far away from the rest of the world in many regards, and while we had such a vibrant community down here, I wasn't seeing many opportunities for Australian skaters in the form of support or sponsorship. So, I wanted to create those opportunities and a tangible pathway for Aussie skaters too.

Something that really excited me about Chuffed was the inclusion of underrepresented communities, especially when you announced your Chuffed Asia Crew! How do you think this impacts the skate industry and community?

This is something that has been so important to me since the beginning of Chuffed. When I started the brand I sensed a big disconnect between how skating was marketed by brands, and representation of the 'real' skate community. While things have gotten better, back then the main image you saw of a roller skater was a skinny white girl. The Chuffed Crew was diverse from the beginning because I wanted to create opportunities for the people I loved and skated with in the Australian scene, and that scene was already so diverse, so it was really just a subset of the broader community.

Last year we launched Chuffed Asia because we are really close to Asia geographically, but we see so little about Asian skate scenes and communities. We have skaters in Chuffed Asia from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Hong Kong. I think seeing someone who looks like you roller skating and receiving opportunities really impacts the way you see yourself in the roller skating world. That's what I hope at least. I want to support and showcase these skaters and their scenes, and in turn I hope that helps to grow roller skating in these places, and sparks more skaters to start roller skating, and stay skating for a long time.

Our growth at Chuffed is always incremental, as we really like to make sure we give care and attention to each project, but I do hope we can have programs like this in more places around the world eventually.

Chuffed is one of the few skate companies offering pro-products that directly benefits skaters, and you also support non-profits selling these. How did this idea come to life? Can you introduce us to some of the Collabs you've done?

This was another thing that was really important to me from the beginning. For so long I saw really good skaters doing so much work for brands for free, and I wanted to start to change that.

At first, we did Crew skates for each member of the team with royalties being paid back to the skater and $10 to their not for profit of choice. These skaters were my closest skate friends and people who had invested their time and energy tirelessly into skating for many years without much monetary reward. It was a dream come true to be able to pay them back for some of those efforts.

Now, we are starting an era of doing Pro products more like in other sports like skateboarding or rollerblading. Soon we will release Jade Morris' Pro boot which has been designed with her over the last year and a half, and is quite different to all our other skate models to date. I see Jade as one of the best skaters, and I have been so hyped to help her create a skate that really elevates her skating (and I hope all those who purchase it). Again, she will get paid royalties, and some money from each sale will go to her preferred charity. Next year, we will release some more pro skates.

In addition to our Pro skates, we have an incentive program where we pay our team skaters. Again this is modeled on other sports, and I hope that other brands start to do this too, because it will really allow roller skating to become a viable industry where skaters can make a living from skating. That's the dream.

We also do Collabs from time to time with other people and brands, but I feel like I could talk forever about this... I guess people can just stay tuned to see what's coming in the future. It's pretty exciting.

Did you ever expect the company to grow to the point it is at now? What challenges have you faced running a roller skate company?

No way! I had no idea if the company would fail or succeed and honestly, I would have been happy if just a few people bought our skates. But it seems what we do resonates with others, which is so exciting. I don't take this trust and support lightly, and I try to continue to do things that will give back to roller skating and make the industry better and stronger. I won't lie - there have been loads of challenges and sleepless nights. Supply chain shortages, shipping congestion and delays... the list goes on. At the end of the day though, it's always worth it.

Chuffed has been committed to creating more audio-visual projects featuring roller skaters in different roles of the production. Can you briefly guide us through those videos?

I love longer form roller skating content, and when possible, we want to create more of it. Recently we just released an edit called Middle Ground which was shot and edited by Gabby Zussino (aka @pattinatrici). It was so cool to be able to pay Gab to do this project, as she is so talented.

Rib Day also just put out a solo edit. In our incentive program we offer payments to skaters to make edits, and to their filmers and editors to put them together. Next year, I imagine we will see more solo edits from our team, and hopefully another group edit too.

It's just so fun getting together with a bunch of skaters and watching a video premiere. It takes things offline and back into the real world, and to me all that hype and energy is one of the best things about skating.

You also run a podcast for Chuffed with Sugu, and it’s surprising how consistent you are with it and the variety of guests featured! How did this idea come to life and who would you like to have an interview with?

When Sugu started working for the brand full time in Branding and Marketing, we discussed how we wanted to spend our marketing budget. Instead of taking out stacks of ads, we wanted to make things that were actually interesting to people. Sugu loves podcasts, so we decided to see how it would go if we did one. She produces and edits Drop In Podcast as part of her role, and it's been going so well, we are now into season 2! One of the reasons it's so successful is because all our guests are so cool. There's no shortage of roller skaters we could talk to for an hour and have a really riveting episode.

We have a bucket list of guests that we work through, so everyone we have already spoken to has been on that list. To keep things fresh, we try not to invite guests that have been on other podcasts or have been interviewed recently, so that narrows it down a bit. Some people I would really love to chat to in the future are Bosque, Lanna Thornhil, Marta from Dog Days Magazine... the list is actually very long!

What's next for Chuffed now that you're entering the US Roller Skate Market? What do you want to bring to the table?

We were able to enter the USA thanks to our distributor Concrete Distribution. I knew that if we were going to be actively selling skates in the region, we had to support skaters there too, so our Chuffed USA crew was born. We don't want to just be a brand that's across the other side of the world; we want to be present in the places our skates are, and we want to understand the unique needs of those regions. We have recently employed a Brand Coordinator to help us there. Through them we hope to support skaters and events, and eventually use this as a base to branch out into Central and South America. Colombia is a place that is really close to my heart as I have family there, and the skaters there have become like my extended family. I know the struggles for Latin American skaters are so intense, but I also know that there's no magic solution I can put into place quickly to help them. We are thinking about how we can authentically support these scenes in ways that have longevity. I hope we will see some progress next year.

Don’t forget to stay tuned at @chuffedskates and check out chuffedskatesusa.com for all things Chuffed in the US!!!