Local Motion
Designer Doni Nahmias returns to his roots, rolling through bowl corners at Carpinteria’s new skate park
Doni Nahmias (bottom) and a cohort of creatives sprawl across new concrete in current and archival designs from the Santa Barbara native’s influential menswear label.
Photography by We Are the Rhoads | Fashion Direction by Doni Nahmias | Written by Elizabeth Varnell
Nahmias, who often logged after-school hours at a friend’s house in Summerland, has emblazoned the place-name on a host of his designs, including intarsia-knit sweaters.
The low hum of wheels on concrete and the occasional scrape of a deck against the lip of a ramp or the top of a rail are the only audible sounds at Carpinteria’s new 30,000-square-foot skate park as Doni Nahmias rides over. The founder and creative director of the influential Nahmias menswear brand grew up in Santa Barbara and remembers when that city’s skate park opened. He calls this a “full circle moment.” The 30-year-old—who shows his designed-in-Los Angeles collections in Paris and dresses NBA stars, including some of the reigning champion Denver Nuggets—is getting a look at the new spot, which was built after years of grassroots fundraising by a core group of friends who formed the Carpinteria Skate Foundation and developed the city-owned space with community support.
FROM LEFT: Nahmias double-breasted blazer and denim cargo shorts; Nahmias silk shirt with a Rincon-inspired watercolor and worker pants. Boards courtesy of Carpinteria Skate Foundation.
Fashion frequently nods to this midcentury pastime with California roots, and the sport even had its Olympic debut in 2021. “Skateboarding popularity ebbs and flows,” says CSF’s Peter Bonning, who helped spearhead the skate-park campaign over the past 14 years.
Right now, the sport is clearly on an upswing. Miu Miu and a host of European houses are again mining low-slung skate silhouettes for inspiration, and the Design Museum in London just opened a Skateboard exhibition chronicling the sport’s backstory and evolution over the past three-quarters of a century.
Nahmias, who grew up playing basketball and skating, finds that labels often follow skaters, not vice versa. “Skaters aren’t wearing designer. Honestly, designers look at what skaters wear. They’re so effortless; they have their own natural swagger,” he says. And while many brands make skate shoes, few fashion designers can ollie the way Nahmias does.
“Skaters aren’t wearing designer. Designers look at what skaters wear; they’re so effortless, they have their own natural swagger.”
The self-taught designer—whose collections are often inspired by the places where he grew up, from the San Roque neighborhood to the porch of a friend’s Summerland house—initially worked in L.A. at the Four Seasons and Chateau Marmont. He also put in weekends at Esau’s Cafe in Carpinteria to scrape together cash for fabrics and samples. After a slow grind and advice from established designers such as Mike Amiri and Greg Lauren, Nahmias’s authentic looks began to turn heads. So did a hat with the word “Miracle” on it, worn by Justin Bieber. “Everything I was doing was feeling so special. I put that on a hat,” says Nahmias, adding, “That hat almost self-funded the company.”
Catching air in Nahmias Poppy worker pants and red Five-O sneakers at the Carpinteria Skate Park.
“Falling in love with fashion and being able to move to L.A.—every day I’m doing what I love,” says Nahmias. The city provides access to stores stocking luxury brands and to the garment district, where some collection pieces are manufactured. Santa Barbara and L.A. are complete opposites, he notes, “but having the two to pull from is a special combination.” So Nahmias often finds himself returning to the natural beauty up the coast for inspiration. His silk shirts are emblazoned with watercolor paintings of Butterfly Beach, and the forthcoming spring collection, Queen of the Coast, is awash in Rincon-inspired images of mermaids, mushrooms, and hearts. “It’s my favorite wave,” says the designer.
“Everything I was doing was feeling so special. I put that on a hat”
Despite selling at retailers from Maxfield to Hirshleifers, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue, the designer—who has “Summerland” tattooed across his lower back—is ever mindful of the neighborhoods he came from. “There was a shop, Church of Skatan on Gutierrez Street, I’m so devastated it closed down,” says Nahmias of a favored haunt in Santa Barbara. His early approach to apparel acquisition and some of the silhouettes of his youth continue to inform his work. “I wore Etnies and Dickies. I had an era of shoplifting; I would steal jeans. Hopefully kids aren’t trying to steal mine, but if they are, I’m forgiving.” His worker pants are ideal for skating, as are his Five-O canvas sneakers.
Next up Nahmias is finishing a collection with a western theme inspired by Hope Ranch. Expanded retailing abroad is also in the works. “It takes a lot for the line to go across the ocean and be loved,” he notes. But he doesn’t seem concerned: On this afternoon at the skate park, Nahmias is just another guy landing tricks before the sun goes down and the lights come up.
Hair by Andre Gunn at Art Department. Makeup by Gina Brooke. Models Chris Chann @chrischann, Destiny Niemeier @desniemeier, Donovan Wildfong at Storm Management @donovanwildfong, Swap at Nomad Management @swapecito. Photographed on location at Carpinteria Skate Park.
