At home in Oceanside with Lizzie Armanto

Welcome home from your Euro trip! You skated Vert Attack in Malmo while you over there and came first—congrats! How was it?
It was good, this year was super mellow. It was pretty much just Allysha and I skating so it kind of felt more like a demo. But Vert Attack is super cool, I love that ramp.

The footage made it look like a pretty wild event, with the wrestlers on the ramp and all that. It seems pretty theatrical.
Yeah they always go all out with whatever theme they pick. It’s fun though. I feel like that contest is like the throw-away in a sense, like everyone that goes there is just out for a good time. The people there are serious about skateboarding but at the end of the day it’s mostly about getting everyone together and I feel like that vibe kind of shows through at that event, where as some events just feel so serious.

I think the Scandinavians have a way of doing that, right? Like with Copenhagen Open—it’s like a contest that’s really not a contest. Are you going to CPH Open?
Not this year. I want to go back to Copenhagen, I love that city, it’s so fun. But I just feel like this year I’m focusing on contests and I don’t want to over do it. I just want to feel prepared, as much as I can for the contest season. So many years I do the contests and I do other side stuff and I feel like I wanna switch it up and be a little more focused.

Is that Olympics driven now?
Yeah, partially, but then it’s also just been a while since I’ve really focused on contests.

So, on the Olympics topic, how has the reaction been to your announcement that you’re skating for team Finland?
It’s been really good. I feel like at first people were pretty confused about my decision because a lot of people didn’t know I had Finnish citizenship. But then when people realized that, I think it made a lot more sense to them and they were much more understanding. At first they were like, “why?” in a very shocked and almost upset tone. But it’s been cool getting to go over to Europe more and also learning more about my family history and understanding Finnish culture more.

Have the Finnish people been really welcoming and supportive?
Yeah, they’re been very supportive and welcoming. It’s been really cool, like, on my last trip I got to go to Finland specifically for skating and not just a family trip—which it’s always been in the past—and I got to see some places outside of Helsinki. So this trip I was able to go there and see the skate scene and just be submersed in the culture, without just being with my family. It’s always a different trip when it’s like that.

So what’s the process now, leading up to Tokyo next year?
Pretty much just skate the contests and try to qualify. Dew Tour is the first qualifier but after that… they still haven’t announced the rest of the contests but there should be some more here.

So there’s no clear route or timeline for qualifying?
Pretty much. It’s skateboarding, it’s unorganized. Like, I’m not surprised, but I wish it were more organized because it would make everything a lot more straightforward. There’s quite a few things where people are just guessing. On that last trip when I was in Berlin, people were like, “so, what do you have to do?” And I was like, “well, I pretty much just skate this one contest and then wait till they announce the rest.” And they’re like, “but how do you qualify?”. “The contests.” “Which contests?” “The one’s that don’t exist yet.” The runaround…

Well you’ve had a good contest run lately so you’re off to a good start. You won Vert Attack and also the recent Girls Combi Classic.
Yeah, contests this year have turned out really good for me, which is ironic because the lead up into them hasn’t been super serious. Like I said, this year I’m focusing on contests. The past two contests were smaller events that are one-off contests, versus, like, Vans Park Series which is more established right now. And Dew Tour is going to be an Olympic qualifier so I think those ones are a bit more important. But these first two I went into less serious and I think that actually helped me. With Combi, I got in from Europe 4 days before, then I went out to Salt Lake City, then flew in the day before the Combi contest and then ended up being able to skate there and place.

Yeah, first place!!
That was special. Combi is an exception just because I grew up skating there, so I just know that bowl really well. And then for Vert Attack, I was on a three week trip before that and it wasn’t like I went out there to go be contest-serious. But it’s been cool that it’s been working out like that. Like, I’m not bummed on it at all.

Is that going to be your new tactic, then? Go in unprepared?
Yeah, just come in super jet-lagged and not have enough time to freak out.

Just fly into Tokyo the day before the Olympics?
I feel like no matter what, it’s going to be kind of hectic. There’s a lot of moving pieces. I’m just going to try to do one thing at a time and see how far I get.

So you’re home now for a couple of weeks before you head to China for Vans Park Series. What do you get up to while your home? Catching up on chill time?
I don’t do anything but at the same time I’m always doing something. Like even chilling still involves driving a bunch of places and going to do whatever. I just want to skate and feel normal and get on a good schedule now that I’m home. After i got back I skated a Tony Hawk Foundation demo in Newport—that was cool—and I skated the Vans vert ramp for Grosso’s birthday.

Is that the one at Vans HQ?
Yeah. That ramp is kind of similar to Vert Attack, except it doesn’t have pool coping.

Do you have an office named after you at Vans?
Yeah, I do. If you go to the Vans office, there’s a meeting room called the Lizzie Armanto Room. I have some stuff in there. I gave them a Pinterest board to like model it after but I want to go through a bunch of my skate stuff.

So you get to decorate it? Are you tempted to do something crazy like, you know, art with hidden dicks on the wall or something?
Umm, not that crazy [laughs]. I don’t know, I feel like whatever I put in there is fair game so I don’t want it to be anything too sentimental. At first I was like, I’ll just put all my trophies in there and not have to deal with them…

Your own personal storage room at HQ?
Yeah, I was thinking I could just throw all the stuff that I don’t really wanna deal with in there [Laughs]. I don’t know, I want to do something fun. To just do like a trophy wall feels kind of cliché. It’s pretty small. There’s a desk in the middle of the room with chairs for conferences, but I can pretty much do whatever. The walls are free game. I put in some air plants but they’re probably going to die because no one knows they’re real or no one actually cares. It definitely needs more of a personal touch in there. I feel like it’s always an afterthought, like, oh yeah, I have that office.

Does anyone else have something particularly cool in their room?
Grosso has the best room because he just brought a bunch of junk… like, cool junk! Like, it pretty much looks like the Rose Bowl Swap Meet gems.

You’re into arts and crafts—are you doing anything DIY with your house or with the office?
With the house I’m actually trying to make it look well put together, verses DIY.

So you’re not knitting blankets yet?
No, I wish I had the time. I’ve been buying more books and now I have more books than I have time to read them. I want to start hacking away at them. I just purchased Becoming Beyonce. I want to get through that.

I don’t actually know anything about that book. I assume that’s a biography, not a step-by-step guide to becoming Beyonce.
Oh my god, “how to become Beyonce.” That would be fabulous! [Laughs] That book is a hardback and its a bigger than what I’d usually read. But it’s Beyonce so I’m sure it’s amazing. I feel like she doesn’t half-ass anything.

I hate to be predictable, but I have to bring up the loop. Now that you’ve done that, does it give you a sense of like, anything’s possible?
Yes and no. I feel like doing the loop is like climbing your tallest personal mountain, but then, you find another one out in the distance and you just start going again. It was cool to do because it’s one of those things that, I don’t know… I don’t really set ultimatums for myself but I thought it would be cool to do. I just didn’t know if I actually could. In the most honest way, I was like, “I don’t know if I can do it.” The process was pretty intense but everything worked out. Sometimes you just try things and realize if they’re for you or not for you.

Well I guess that one was for you. On the topic of killer accomplishments, you had the Transworld cover a little while back — the first woman on the cover! — what were your thoughts on the end of Transworld in print?
I was sad to see it go. To be honest though, it’s not like I’m buying Transworld or Thrasher magazines so I’m not a part of the solution. But it’s sad to see print go just because I like real things. I feel like there’s been so many more opportunities because of the Internet — because of the internet I have a job — but at the same time it’s sad to see things like print magazines disappear. There will always be an affinity for print and old timely things. But maybe it’s a case of doing print differently.

I agree. Like, print can no longer be the go to source for the latest news because we’ve already heard about it all online weeks before it goes to print. It needs to be more sentimental… something we can put on the bookshelf and hold onto.
Yeah, it is like a bookmark in time. What I was looking at on the internet a year ago, I’ll never really remember, but then, with print you have a tangible thing that you can open up whenever and go back to that time.

You also just released your new Vans collection, which is awesome. How involved did you get to be in the design process?
I was stoked to see that come out! That collection was the first collection where I pretty much had free reign. It goes by pretty quick putting it together. You don’t get many shots in the process. Like, we came up with the ideas and then you can tweak a couple of things but not many. I feel like it was a big learning curve for me, trying to figure out the design process and how things work. Overall I’m really stoked with it. It’s a challenge to do something that everyone is going to like, but it’s one of my first collections and I wanted to make it more “me” versus what’s on trend. I was really stoked on how all the reflective stuff came out, like the lining on the slip on and the side stripe on the high top. If you take a photo of them, it just pops! Little stuff like that makes it that much more exciting.

I really like the little flower eyelets on the high tops. It’s a nice subtle little touch.
Yeah, and it’s hard to figure out if something’s too much or too little. But I was stoked with the details. The lucky cat on the insole turned out really cool too and on the slip on I got to do the rubber skate patch on the side, which is something Vans has started playing with.

Were the technical features as important to you as the design aesthetic?
I feel like Vans basic shoes are good skate shoes. Like, I like skating in the most basic form of them, so the with skate versions, I feel like they already have the technical side figured out. So I just wanted to make something that looks nice and that I love.

You’ve been skating a bit of street lately. Is that something you’ve always done or is it because you go skating with Axel and end up at street spots?
Before I met Axel I would pretty much only skate big ramps and bowls, but now when I’m with Axel we’ll go to skateparks and he’ll skate the street course and I’ll skate the bowl and then we’ll split it up. So I’ve been trying to skate street and just dabble. Before I didn’t really have the patience for it but seeing Axel’s process has helped me understand it better. He also just does everything so easy that sometimes I think it is easy. Sometimes it just works, other times it doesn’t.

Well next time you’re up in LA, let’s go skate some curbs! But for now, congrats again on the collection, and on everything else. And good luck in China!