Freedom, independence and the feeling of doing everything you set your mind to. Magenta Skateboards is not just a label that with cool artwork on skateboard decks and the latest in designs - Magenta Skateboards embodies its founders’ passion for skateboarding and inspires an entire community to find their path and be free!
In 2010, three French skaters, Sourya "Soy" Panday, with brothers Vivien and Jean Feil founded the Paris label, Magenta. The idea for Magenta came to Vivien Feil at a time that was very much shaped by everyday routine and never-changing cycles. The feeling that the skateboarding world was being pushed more and more into one direction and was becoming monotonous was the deciding moment for Vivien to bring Magenta to life. Prior to the official launch of the brand, fellow countryman Leo Valls was the first team rider. A short while later, the US boys Jimmy Lannon and Zach Lyons as well as Koichiro Uehara, hailing from Japan took the purple boards in hand and completed the team.
Raised on Parisian pavement - at home in Bordeaux
The unusually flat streets of the French capital not only offer ideal conditions for skating, but they’re also perfect inspiration for naming a developing brand. Hence, Magenta was named after the street on which Soy Panday and Vivien Feil shared an apartment for a long time. However, the Boulevard de Magenta in Paris was not the only keystone in the backstory of Magenta Skateboards. It also refers to the Italian town of Magenta near Milan where during an important battle in the Sardinian war, so much blood was shed that the ground was submerged in the familiar red-blue colour.
In the meantime, the Magenta boys packed up and relocated to the south-west city of Bordeaux. There, the road conditions in the city are also excellent and it allows for a slightly more introspective life and above all, the skating is way better than in the overcrowded city of Paris.
Magenta- from the hands of skaters
Next to excellent quality, Magenta’s main concern is that the entire workflow, from manufacturing the decks to the dispatch is done by skaters. As a result of this, there are no art directors or agents who are strangers to skateboarding. In addition, all of the team members have the opportunity to create and further develop the brand in a creative way with a focus on pure skateboarding.
All Magenta skateboard decks are made exclusively at the famous Generator workshop in San Marcos, California and then printed with artwork by Soy Panday. The main component, in addition to 7 layers of maple from the best trees in Canada, is Magenta’s logo: a six-leaved plant. According to Panday, this represents freedom and biological origin, and that it doesn’t matter what social or cultural background you have, skating unites and balances the obvious differences. So you become part of a whole.
