Nora Vasconcellos Reflects On Becoming First Woman Rider To Receive Adidas Signature Pro Skate Shoe

With all the strides in diversity and inclusivity professional skateboarding has made in the last few years, it may come as a surprise that one of the industry’s major players, adidas Skateboarding, just launched the first signature Pro silhouette for a woman rider.

But Nora Vasconcellos, whose gender-inclusive adidas Skateboarding collection that launched in October is a major achievement not only for her personally but for female riders historically, is just excited about what this move means for the future—hers, but also and perhaps more so, the young non-male riders coming up through the sport currently.

“There are a lot of women who came before me who didn’t have the opportunity to do this,” Vasconcellos told me. “It’s really cool to be in this place where 10-year-old Nora, if she was looking right now, she’d be like. ‘Mom, I need those shoes right now.’ For the young girls to see it happening...it might change the trajectory of what they want to do and how they think about themselves.”

Vasconcellos turned pro in 2017 with her first Welcome Skateboards board, also winning the Vans Park Series World Championships. She then turned pro for adidas and and began the process of designing her first colorway.

Around 24 years old when she joined the adidas Skateboarding team, Vasconcellos felt a level of motivation that instantly manifested itself in her skating.

“Especially as a young girl, I felt like I was always more capable than people would hold me to,” she said. “To get to ride for adidas was so huge and I just had hoped that they would hold me to the same standard as they did with the guys.”

The 29-year-old was on the professional skateboarding competition circuit for 10 years, competing at Dew Tour, X Games and more global contests, mainly in park skateboarding.

When skateboarding was added to the Olympic program in 2016 and began building a global infrastructure to qualify girls and women around the world, however, she opted not to pursue that path, instead focusing more on the creative expression of street skating and on filming video parts.

Not unlike her fellow adidas pro on the men’s side, Tyshawn Jones, Vasconcellos is now making her mark on the industry outside the competitive circuit.

An illustrator and artist, she also hopes to take on more design work for brands (she’s already designed for Stance, Welcome Skateboards and Krux Trux).

To that end, the NORA by Nora Vasconcellos apparel pack, beyond the signature sneaker, is an effortlessly cool and gender-fluid collection, including a track top, track slacks and a knit polo jersey.

The NORA shoes are her “own spin on classic adidas heritage,” Vasconcellos told me. Team skater Dennis Busenitz based his pro shoe off a classic soccer sneaker and Jones based his on basketball shoes.

For her own shoe, “I definitely wanted the look of it to be very universal; I want it to look like a shoe that you don’t have to know anything about skateboarding to appreciate the aesthetic of,” she said. She took her cue from tennis shoes and the classic adidas Stan Smith silhouette.

On November 1, adidas released a new colorway in the NORA: red, white and blue. The first three were black, white and navy and white and green.

Growing up in Pembroke, Massachusetts, Vasconcellos says her style cues were taken largely from her parents—Dad is an artist and illustrator and Mom is a life coach (and a “super athlete,” Vasconcellos says).

“I think they are this really perfect mix of sporty but casually cool; I look at photos of them and it’s annoying how effortlessly put together they are,” she said with a laugh. “Neither are materialistic people; they just have this wonderful aesthetic, New England chic.” The goal was to design a shoe that she could find in her mom’s closet.

The collection as a whole is meant to attempt to break down some of the binary stigmas that skateboarding can house; a sometimes toxic element of the competitive side of the sport is that riders must compete in men’s or women’s categories.

“I don’t think you should have to fit into a label you’re not comfortable with to excel in skateboarding,” Vasconcellos said. “I pulled out before the Olympic stuff in the beginning of the qualifying for that, and my progression and my personal journey with skating has only blossomed. We have other community events, we have filming and editorial work—we need to continue to do grassroots events that combine the fields or really change the dynamics.”

Personally, Vasconcellos has also found that skateboarding is a tool for her own mental health and pushing herself to take on new challenges.

Though she’s suffered from a lifelong panic disorder that’s exacerbated by travel and being in crowded spaces (for many years, she could not go to a movie theater), she simply had to push past that in order to accept the call to turn pro with adidas five years ago and the ways she knew that would change her life.

When Vasconcellos moved from New England to California in 2012, she could not fly—instead taking a 71-hour train ride. The next year, she was invited to X Games, and it would be the first time she had flown in years. “I had to bite the bullet,” she said.

“The human body and the human condition is meant to be pushed,” she continued. “A lot of times anxiety is just the tipping point of us being pushed to our limit. Once you get over it, you gain the insight that it’s like working on a muscle in your body.”

Vasconcellos is now able to view her anxiety as a “gift” when it comes to her skateboarding. “I’m way more intense with it,” she said. “I have OCD, and the amount of times I’ll try something, I will not give up until my body gives out. It makes me a better skateboarder in so many ways.”

Even though she broke her ankle in October—the first injury in 18 years of skateboarding that’s required surgery—which delayed her video part, Vasconcellos has been able to maintain perspective and tap into that peaceful mindset skateboarding has cultivated in her.

Some people do have an innate talent for skateboarding that presents when they are very young. Vasconcellos got her start late, not even entering her first competition until she was 20.

“I’m in this really upward push of my personal ability on a skateboard. It’s a very cool place to be in,” she said, adding that she’s turning 30 this month. “A lot of people hit that stride when they’re teenagers; I didn’t have that opportunity. To do it now at the end of this decade is super cool.”

The path Vasconcellos has chosen in skateboarding is super personal to her, but she hopes it’s also one other young skaters, especially girls, feel empowered to pursue. Vasconcellos’ art doesn’t suffer at the expense of her skateboarding; her skateboarding doesn’t suffer at the expense of her anxiety.

And while she clearly has innate skill and athletic ability, the first-ever adidas female pro rider is a prime example of the rewards of hard work and dedication.

“I meet these girls who were born like 12 years ago and have been skating for two years and they say, ‘I want to be as good as you one day,’” Vasconcellos said. “It’s like, ‘You’re gonna be so much better.’ Everything is blossoming. It’s a very exciting time.”