Pierre andre senizergues biography sample

The brands Etnies, Emerica and eS Shoes are household names in skateboarding, all under the roof of a company called Soletechnology. But did you know they were all owned and put together by a team of people under a man with such a massive vision for how skateboard shoes should be designed, worn and thrashed?

Let us introduce you to the man behind that vision and the story of how such a challenging idea formed originally in Europe ended up being one of the flagship companies of the current Skateboard industry worldwide. At some point your feet would have been in a pair of Etnies, CEO Pierre Andre Senizergues explains how they got there and much more after dropping into Crossfire HQ in February 2006.

Bonjour Pierre, I hear that you are the Big Cheese of Etnies skateboard shoes, is this correct?

Yes, that’s right….

When did you start Etnies?

I started Etnies 16 year’s ago, it was actually a company that was started in Brittany in France and I brought the company to the U.S and launched in California, the mecca of skateboarding back in the day, and that’s kind of how the story starts with Etnies.

So it was a company that was started in 1986, made by a footwear manufacturer in France, it was a generation of people who had been making shoes for over 200 years and they interacted with a skater whose name was Platoon. Well that was actually was his nickname.

Platoon?

His name was really Alan Laughty but the Platoon movie came out and he was wearing camouflage all the time so all the skaters were calling him Platoon. This guy was living in a village where there was this big shoe manufacturer who made fashion shoes and he talked to them to see if they could make good skateboard shoes. That is kind of how it started. The company didn’t work very well at the beginning because they still had the mentality of making shoes from fashion shoe designs but these were for skateboarders.

Yeah, French shoes as well?!

‘LaughsR

Their answer became Speed Rack, the world’s first and only all-female and femme speed bartending competition–a speed rack is also part of a bar to place liquor for quick handling. Now in its thirteenth year, Speed Rack, featuring “Women shaking up the cocktail world,” is part of a larger movement ensuring nobody else wonders where the female bartenders are: they’re right there behind the bar. Marrero and Mix had witnessed too many women and femme identified individuals not getting the credit they deserved or not being able to break through into craft cocktails. Speed Rack became a way to help change that. “It was just about creating a platform and a pedestal for these women to be seen doing what they do every day,” Marrero says. Plus, all proceeds from every Speed Rack event support charities dedicated to breast cancer research like The Pink Agenda. Since it began, Speed Rack has raised over two million dollars for these organizations.

Competitors Sam Smagala, of the bar Joyface, and Miranda Midler, Head Bartender of Dear Irving's Broadway location, shake it off before Round 1 begins. Elyssa Goodman

On February 17 2025, the eight top bartenders in New York’s regional Speed Rack competition arrived at Melrose Ballroom in Queens for the city’s regional finals. By that point, the field had already been narrowed from some 85 online applications with video submissions to a preliminary competition of 20-25 to tonight’s eight participants. They came from across the city’s cocktail bars–Mister Paradise, The Crane Club, The Portrait Bar, and others–and had to be working at least four shifts a week to qualify.

In a round-robin, bracket-style competition, participants will have to make four perfect cocktails in a matter of minutes–it’s a competition that’s ultimately about speed and accuracy. The drinks will then be delivered to the judges, who will deliberate and give feedback–errors will add ti

It was during the DROP event that I did this interview. When I had just completed an interview with Andy Anderson, Julio, the TM – among his many functions – at V7 threw me on the fly between two sips of beer “hey, Pierre André Senizergues is available if you want do an interview with him?”. To which I had to stutter a “uh but it was not planned but go ahead” because normally I prepare a minimum for my interviews. He replied “don’t worry it will do it”. After all, it’s not every four mornings that we have the opportunity for a small mag to discuss with the boss of Sole Technology. I let myself be carried away and the questions came quite naturally. With Pierre André, it is very easy to discuss. The conversation very quickly turned to Andy, his affiliation with freestyle, the creation of etnies as well as oolympics games and all this shit.

What do you think of this perpetual debate around Andy Anderson’s skateboarding?

It’s good that there is diversity in skateboarding. I understand that some people criticize but skate is freedom. Inclusion and everyone being able to skate the way they want is important. You have to skate for yourself first. Andy brings this idea that you shouldn’t limit yourself to this or that trend. In today’s street there are a lot of things that come from freestyle.

How did the evolution from freestyle to street come about knowing that there are indeed a lot of tricks today that come from freestyle?

The ollie comes from freestyle. Rodney started doing ollies on the floor and then ollies flips. It was a technical skate that opened up a lot of perspectives on the street. Street really started in the early 80s. It must have been 83/84 somewhere around there. Before we practiced either ramp or freestyle. Street was born following the demise of skateparks in the early 80s, that’s when street was born. A bit by force of circumstance. A

The hype on éS shoes returning started last September when a Japanese trade show suddenly unveiled a booth full of Accel’s. Since then, much talk of the brand returning to the game was rife so it was inevitable that at some point skater-owned company Sole Tech had to spill some beans.

CEO and co-founder Pierre-André Senizergues clearly had a lot to get off his chest and chose this interview as his biggest priority of the entire launch.

Let’s rewind a bit, to before you put éS on ice and stuck her beautiful memory in a deep freeze. How heart-wrenching was it to finally go, “yeah, we got to do it”, what was the main reason behind it, and why resurrect her now?

It was a very difficult decision to make of course as we love éS.

What we decided to do was something that no other brand in skateboarding has ever done and create a new concept of a creative retreat. We may have even been the first brand of our size to ever to say “let’s take a break…take a breath of fresh air, reassess where skateboarding is going, and decide where do we want to go.” It was the toughest decision of my life, as I love éS so much, as do millions of skaters around the world. But, it really was the right thing to do.

With being on a creative retreat for almost 2 years, we have been constantly bombarded with love from éS fans to bring it back. We are still in creative retreat where we have been designing and creating, so we thought, why not show some of what we’ve been up to.

So where is skateboarding going?

That’s the big question for everyone and I don’t think anyone has the one right answer! What we do know is that from the skateboarders’ perspective things are moving faster than ever. And sometimes it seems faster than what the skate industry can keep up with. The market is trying to keep things moving in sameness, but the playing field has changed dramatically. Crucial to all presumptions must be to rethink, embrace and face change head on by doin