If elegant accessories made from banged-up skateboards sound impossible, think again. Rebecca Hickey turns trash into shredder fashion with her successful, eco-friendly company, Beck(y). The 36-year-old Long Island native (half her friends call her Beck, the other half Becky) is no poser. She used a skateboard to get around when she was living in Minneapolis after college. Now, decks are her muses.
Photography by Rebecca Hickey
The idea to turn boards into bags came three years ago on a shopping excursion in SoHo. At Prada’s flagship store, a sleek modern space designed by Rem Koolhaas, Hickey noted a giant, zebrawood curve called “the big wave” running through the building. She saw a half-pipe. “I wondered if anyone had ever broken in and tried to skate it,” she says.
Admiring the retailer’s bejeweled, satin-lined
purses, Hickey dreamt up a combination of fine
fabrics and skuzzy skate gear. She got an old deck
from the owner of 5boro Skateboards and sewed
some satin lining. She cut the deck with a chop
saw, smoothed the edges, then fixed wood to satin with industrial glue. Although she removed the grip tape and street crud, Hickey left the graphics and scrapes intact. “Skateboards are so personal to their owners,” she says. “The stickers and scratches tell the story of what that board has been through. I try to keep it as authentic to that as I can.”
Hickey has made some 4,500 “Sk8bags” by hand in her Upper Manhattan live-work space. From dynamic totes to colorful clutches, her collection, which also includes gym bags, belt buckles, iPod cases, and money clips, is found in boutiques and galleries throughout the nation — even on the red carpet. And used decks keep pouring in. To give back, Hickey founded the Boards 4 Bowls program: working with groups including the Tony Hawk Foundation (the icon’s wife has several Beck(y) bags), she donates $3 toward building public skateparks for every board she receives. Now that’s rad.
—Megan Mansell Williams
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