In March, after days of intermittent storms shadowing São Paulo’s skyline, 17-year-old pro skater and surfboarder Sky Brown stood on the lip of a steep skatepark bowl, clad in a black t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports.” There she paused, for a moment, poised to take the gold medal at the World Skateboarding Tour World Championships, and dropped in. Accelerating around the bowl, her signature blond hair whipping in the air and French-tipped fingers grasping the deck of her board, Brown stuck every trick. 

She clinched the gold, of course. Brown has immense technical talent—but it is the way she moves, imbued with a pure form of joy and unfettered passion—that has lifted Brown to the top of her multitudinous career since she started skating at three years old.

Through her historic bronze medal win as a 13-year-old during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, to her second bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and her World Championship Gold win a few months ago in Brazil, Brown embraces being one of the youngest and brightest athletes on a board—both on land and in the water. “My journey started before I can even remember,” Brown remarks. “Yes, I’m extremely competitive and yes, I want to take an Olympic gold—but at the end of the day… I’ve skated and surfed because I genuinely love it and have fun everyday doing it. From that point of view, nothing has changed.”

After being the youngest summer Olympian ever to compete for Great Britain in 2021, Brown is moving her finish line once again. She is currently training to qualify for both surfing and skating events at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, which would make her the first summer Olympian to achieve such a feat. Firsts are, of course, nothing new for Brown, “I’ve been the youngest athlete [in many spaces]. Maybe for LA28 I finally won’t be the youngest,” she muses. 

Brown was recently inducted into the Swatch Proteam lineup, alongside her little brother Ocean Brown and other skateboarders Andy Anderson, Arisa Trew, Gustavo Ribeiro, and Patti Zhou. Given Swatch’s history of supporting luminaries in action sports across the globe, Brown’s initiation places her in a class of the world’s foremost athletes revolutionizing their respective sports—last year’s Proteam Class, which competed at the Swatch Nines in Waco, included A-list surfers Coco Ho and Noah Beschen and skateboarders Andy Anderson and Gustavo Ribeiro. 

While both skateboarding and surfing have long been deemed countercultural compared to other sports, Brown doesn’t view them—or herself—as an outsider. “The concept is more new in the sense that there’s not a regular season schedule like there is for soccer or something,” she explains to me of the sport. “But people are still watching skate and surf competitions live, and the audience is so into it. I think you’ll start to see more and more brands start sponsoring the major competitions, which will only bring more audience over to the sport.” 

And audience Brown does have—a global one at that. It’s no accident that Brown’s aesthetic feels like it was assembled from multiple time zones. The acrylic nails, the faded denim, the graphic tee coalesce into an outfit that could belong to a girl in Shibuya, Venice Beach, or London on the same afternoon. Raised between Southern California and Japan, Brown has never really had just one home. Her personal style—like her sport—represents them all at once. “I’ve honestly really used that inspiration as I’ve grown up, figuring out who I am and what I stand for. I want to inspire the next generation around the world, not just in one area. I’m so grateful that because of my unique background, I have that global audience.”

And, ever-cognizant of that spectre of international attention, Brown is making sure that her place in the public eye is well-meaning. The shirt she wore at the WST World Championships in Brazil wasn’t incidental. “Skating is a male-dominated sport, yet you see the women competing at such a high level—a level that increases every year,” Brown tells me. “Supporting women in sports is so important to me… I’m really proud to be a leader in surfing and skating, showing girls around the world that those are both sports that any girl can do.”

While Brown is steadfast in encouraging women’s participation in her sports, she is also incredibly mindful of the pitfalls of competing at such a high level—and she doesn’t want her excellence to come at the expense of her or anyone else’s well-being. “I see a number of my competitors in both sports who are pushed to their limits by their coaches, and they lose interest in the sport itself. Luckily, my dad has pretty much been my coach, and we’ve both shared the mentality that we do this because we love it.”

Between skating and surfing at an Olympic level (and, notably, taking high school classes), Brown has also found time to become a founder—creating her own skating brand called Tanabata. Known as the “Star Festival,” Tanabata is a term rooted in Japanese culture that has multiple meanings, though a balance of passion and discipline remains indelible to the term. With decks depicting sword-wielding geishas and neon-colored grip tape, Brown’s fusion of multi-cultural styles extends to her brand’s identity. 

It is impressive to behold, though, that someone so young could take on so much—and, seemingly, so easily. Brown tells me she staves off burnout whenever she can. “This journey started for me because I loved both sports so much, not because I knew I would be a two-time world champion,” she emphasizes. “Skating and surfing are my mental escape…I do have a few special spots that bring me even more love for the sport when I go to them, and sometimes they are a bit of an escape for me.”

When it comes to the weight of her already storied legacy or the pressure to perform in rigorous, individualistic sports, Brown remains optimistic. After years of being the youngest person in the room, Brown has a message for those who disregard the subsequent generations: “I think people misunderstand the passion that ‘the youth’ have these days. They know where they want to be and are maybe more checked-in on some things, and more checked-out on others. Not a bad thing.”

For Brown, the checked-in part looks like two Olympic sports, a skateboard brand, and a statement shirt worn on the biggest stage in her sport. The checked-out part, we could infer, looks like dropping into a bowl in São Paulo and simply forgetting to be anything other than free.

Photographed by Selah Tennberg

Styled by Jai Simmons

Written by Isa Luzarraga

Glam: Tatiyana Elias

Flaunt Film: Oren Buchler

Stylist Assistant: Sydney De Vere

Location: Santa Monica Proper Hotel