Join the Skate Sisterhood in ‘Sorority’

Bonding over our common love for skating, art, fashion and cool, weird shit, VICE and Vans partnered to launch Unbound—a series that enables emerging Canadian creatives to work on what they love.

The reputed beauty of skateboarding is that you don’t need a team to do it. But the truth is that as much as people like to romanticize skating as just you, your board, and face-melting bliss, it’s way more fun when you’ve actually got friends to do it with. Besides, does anyone really want to film themselves alone in their garage like this guy?

That’s not to discredit the dutiful unknown soldiers of solo-session driveway skating across the world. But as we’ve seen through history from Thrashin’s the Daggers to the Skate Witches to the Bones Brigade—as well as modern contemporaries like Dime—having a crew to cruise, run, slam, or land with has always been half the fun of skating.

Gaining acceptance into a crew of your own, though, is another bizarre learning curve of skating entirely; one that can be an even bigger barrier for women. Director Krizia Victoria explores the latter through her experiences learning to skate in the new short film Sorority.

“I remember getting a board when I was in junior high. I had a crush on a guy who skated, and I remember other guys being like ‘What are you doing? You’re a poser. No, not for you,’” says Victoria over the phone from LA where she’s now based. Responding to the boys club mentality she encountered, Sorority imagines a female-led skate collective making a public access–style recruitment video. As we’re led through an eerily calming sequence of pastel backdrops, soft voices, and stylized ingenues, a nameless leader gently beckons fellow females to join the organization known only as the “skate cult.”

Dually satirizing dated skatepark mentalities and how femininity is often marketed, the short film extends an open invitation to anyone who’s ever second guessed themselves about stepping on a board. “I feel feminism has been commodified. There's always a shirt or merchandise that says ‘the future is female’ while this sentiment is amazing, it is often not supported; women are put into boxes. They told to be small, soft and nice, and not get dirty” Victoria explains. “The idea was taking that femininity and pairing it with how typically rough skating is—like the shaky VHS footage is a contrast to the ethereal visuals of how women are usually portrayed.”

Although this Skate Cult is fictional for now, Victoria feels it’s faithful to the burgeoning networks of female-led skate clubs and meetups that are becoming increasingly more visible.

“There’s a really big community. There are people out there that are super down to skate with you, if you want to learn. Just go together, it will be fun,” she adds.

So spark a group chat, barge the DMs, and give a to nod anyone wearing cargo floods, because chances are they’re as keen to go skate as you are.