How can we explain the eternal return of roller skating?

Bordeaux, Nov 2 (The Conversation) Roller skates, used as performance accessories since the 17th century, originated in Europe, in the shadow of ice skating. The great aristocratic and fashionable trends of the early 20th century were followed by numerous periods of enthusiasm, each with its own unique form and style. Yet, roller skating has never truly established itself in France as a cultural phenomenon.

The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns sparked a resurgence of interest in roller skating. Between 2020 and 2022, skate sales jumped by 300 per cent in the United States and followed the same trend in France. Through influencers such as Ana Coto and Oumi Janta , the TikTok generation reclaimed the streets and public squares. Brands were quick to relaunch models with a look that was both vintage and modernized.

This recent surge in popularity, however, did not arise from nothing. It is part of a long history of successive trends in roller skating in France and around the world. By revisiting these trends, by examining the roles of the participants and their perceptions , we can better understand why roller skating still struggles to establish itself as a lasting cultural phenomenon and therefore operates through disruption, through fads.

A first wave: the "rinkomania" of 1876 ----------------------------------------- The first major craze for roller skating dates back to around 1876. The skating craze, embodied by James Leonard Plimpton 's axle-mounted skates , crossed the Atlantic and reached Europe. Henry Mouhot described this unprecedented enthusiasm in his work, Rinkomanie (1875).

In France, nearly 70 roller skating rinks opened their doors within three years. Mostly frequented by the aristocracy, the upper middle class and the "traveling elite" , they became essential places for urban and cosmopolitan sociability.

Roller skating is thus considered an alternative to ice skating, whose postures and body techniques it replicates . Unlike its predecessor on blades, it allows for year-round practice.

However, despite hygienic aspirations, Anglomania and the novelty factor, the fashion declined rapidly under the influence of several factors: innovative but largely imperfect equipment requiring significant technical mastery, the fragility of commercial enterprises, the poor attendance at rinks , the lack of institutionalization or even the competition from other practices, such as cycling.

1910: From a social leisure activity to "sportification" -------------------------------------------------------- A series of notable technological innovations, such as ball bearings, combined with stricter access regulations for skating rinks, helped revive interest in roller skating on the eve of the First World War. Sam Nieswizski (1991) argues that the impending conflict spurred the middle class to seek out this form of entertainment. Nearly 130 skating rinks were built between 1903 and 1914, in Paris and throughout the provinces. They were constructed particularly along the Atlantic coast and in resort areas popular with British tourists.

Like table tennis , a fashionable and elegant pastime, roller skating established its first roller hockey, racing, and figure skating clubs. The "sportification" of roller skating as a "comprehensive process of transforming physical exercises and ancient recreational practices into a modern sport" began at the end of the 19th century . The French Roller Skating Federation was founded in 1910.

At the same time, the popular and children's practice of skating outdoors was developing, not without provoking police repression. In Paris, the prefecture attempted to contain the influx of skaters onto public streets by issuing an order prohibiting the practice around the Luxembourg Gardens. This triggered strong reactions from newspapers, such as Le Matin and L'Humanité , which mobilized to defend the popular practice against the bourgeois conception of skating on rinks .

The 1910 trend, however, proved pivotal: it initiated the popularization and sportification of the activity, a trend that continued into the interwar period with the creation of the international federation and the first European and world championships. The outbreak of the war and institutional resistance may partly explain why France did not experience a period of cultural entrenchment as profound as that observed during the American Roller Skate Craze of the 1920s-1950s.

Cyclical resurgences during the 20th century ----------------------------------------------- The interwar period saw the emergence of roller-catch : the professional ancestor of today's roller derby took over the Vélodrome d'Hiver in 1939. More of a spectacle than a sport, the practice was rejected by the international federation, driven by the values ​​of amateurism. It was reborn in a modernized and feminist form in the early 2000s.

During the 1950s and up to the 1980s, clubs and competitions developed discreetly. At the same time, the low-cost production of adjustable-length roller skates encouraged children to participate.

In the late 1970s, the advent of urethane wheels made skating more comfortable and fluid, opening up new technical possibilities. Roller skates, with their one-piece athletic shoe look, accompanied the roller disco wave. Films like *La Boum* and *Subway* presented two opposing but coexisting representations of roller skating. From 1981 onward, the thousands of roller skaters in Paris took over the capital's streets, to such an extent that pedestrians called for their ban . Labeled as marginal , they foreshadowed the city's conquest of the 1990s and 2000s.

At the dawn of the 21st century , iconic brands like Rollerblade spearheaded the inline skating boom, rejuvenating the outdated image of traditional roller skates. Roller skating became cool, trendy, and eco-friendly. It followed in the footsteps of Californian sports and was even considered as a mode of transportation: from the London strikes of 1924 to the strikes of 1995, it was a short leap forward.

It is acquiring a more respectable status, despite the negative perceptions of its aggressive side (acrobatic rollerblading and street freestyle), which remains misunderstood, much like skateboarding. Authorities oscillate between acceptance and repression in an ambivalent discourse . In Belgium, rollerblading is included in the Highway Code , while in France, the recommendations of the White Paper from the Center for Studies on Networks, Transport, Urban Planning and Public Works (Certu) remain a dead letter.

In 2010, the film Bliss/Whip It! marked the resurgence of roller derby. For several years, newspapers followed with interest the reappropriation of this sport by women. Roller skating experienced a revival, as did the sport between 2016 and 2018, fueled by Disney's global marketing campaign promoting the teen series Soy Luna .

Four years later, the same generation of practitioners freed themselves from confinement by reviving roller-dance, a modernized extension of roller-disco which remained in the collective imagination.

Why do these cycles repeat? ------------------------------ Thus, with each passing trend, roller skating makes a strong comeback. Similar to fashion trends, and within a logic of imitation/distinction , skaters reappropriate symbols of the past in order to subvert them and assert their individuality.

Historical and sociological analysis reveals several factors driving the emergence and perpetuation of trends related to the various actors involved in the field of physical activity and sports: technological innovations driven by manufacturers (bearings, urethane wheels) and distributors, marketing and communication ( Soy Luna ), the media and influencers (lockdown), the aspirations of participants, body techniques, suitable practice venues, and the influence of state and federal institutions. However, inhibiting factors disrupt these trends and limit their lasting societal entrenchment, particularly when the objectives of the actors diverge.

Thus, the history of roller skating trends in France teaches us that enthusiasm alone is not enough to generate them. An active ecosystem with converging interests is necessary: ​​manufacturers, media, infrastructure, institutions. In other words, simply skating does not make someone a cultural phenomenon. (The Conversation) RD RD