INSIDE TAKU ARCHIVES
Streetwear rooted in tradition: inside Taku’s mission to preserve Venice’s skate and surf culture through authentic design and community.
Story: Ceci Brown
Taku— the Venice-born brand, is bringing grit back to streetwear. Founders Jake Shockley and Oliver Sun found inspiration in the skate and surf cultures that define the history of the California city. However, the pair have seen these artistic communities fade as gentrification rises. Creating against that grain, Taku is redefining what it means to be a part of a community rooted in authentic skate and surf tradition.
Despite the brand's Venice-inspired identity, its name: “Taku” comes from a different place. “Taku” is an ode to Jake's family cabin in Northern British Columbia, where summers are spent off the grid.
“My grandfather passed away a few years ago, but whenever he radioed into the nearby town, his call sign was 'Taku Bob.' My grandmother made him a hat with 'Taku' embroidered on it. I always loved that hat growing up, and that's where the name came from," Jake explains.
Those values are rooted in Oliver and Jake's lifelong friendship. The two met when they were just eight months old, growing up together, shaping surfboards, and eventually turning their creativity into a brand of their own.
Taku began as a surfboard shaping company Jake founded in high school. He handcrafted custom boards and handed them off to Oliver, who tested them on the water and photographed their artistic nature. When the two left home to attend colleges on opposite coasts, they quickly realized they missed creating together.
“We wanted to spend this summer making art again,” Oliver says.
Taku is more than just a clothing brand for Jake and Oliver; it's a way to preserve the community that shaped them. Oliver notes that, “Venice has always had this raw, gritty culture, although it's become redeveloped in recent years. Some of those changes have been positive, but they've also pushed out a lot of the local artists who helped define the community.” This is why making pieces that feel authentic to their community is so important to the brand.
This reflects in Takus' collections, drawing inspiration from Venice skate and surf communities. Describing their creative vision as “designs that reference classic staples from the 1970s surf and skate Dogtown era while giving them our own interpretation.”
As the collections came to life, Oliver and Jake knew they wanted to expand their brand, but to communities that are built by fellow small artists. As a result, "We want our clothes to end up on people who genuinely represent what we were building."
LA’s most renowned flea markets such as The Silver Lake Flea Market have helped Taku begin building real relationships with skate and surf communities around LA. These connections with artists, creatives, skaters, and surfers represent the culture that Taku is building within.
With recent success, Oliver and Jake know this is just the beginning for Taku. Their connection to the brand's core values of community and tradition has not only allowed them to kick off this new project, but will continue to keep them grounded in what it really means to be a part of Taku. For them, success is not in the numbers, it’s in respecting what came before them and growing within an ever-changing community of West Coast skaters and surfers.