Lizzie Armanto on kick-flipping the female skate scene, her Finnish roots, and life in LA

“Sometimes I wonder, like, how did I get where I’m at?” says Lizzie Armanto. “But then, when I really break it down, I do think I was very inspired by my mum. She works in a male-dominated industry – she’s an engineer, and I think she unknowingly has inspired me in a lot of ways.”

It’s morning in Los Angeles, and 30-year-old Armanto is in her backyard, soaking in those first rays of sun that seep through the clouds. Fresh-faced and exuding an enviable, natural glow, she wears an oversized black sweater, her dark brown hair neatly tied up. Through our Zoom call, she shows me around the garden, her fired-up dog Alma in tow. There’s lots of lush greenery and, in true California style, a deliciously turquoise pool. “I think you guys would consider it warm,” she says of the weather. “But it’s more fair – not too hot or not too cold.”

You have to forgive her disbelief in her current circumstances; Armanto has quite a few ‘firsts’ to her name. In 2016, the American-Finnish pro skateboarder became the first woman to appear on the cover of Transworld Skateboarding magazine. Two years later – to viral fanfare – she became the first female skateboarder to successfully complete Tony Hawk’s notorious 360° loop ramp. And when skateboarding was finally added to the Olympic Games lineup in 2020, Armanto was the first to represent Finland in the competition.

Then there’s the recent Vans pro skate shoe she designed, which is the brand’s first to be crafted entirely out of sustainable materials. Given that the health of our planet has been an interest of Armanto's since a young age, she set a very high standard for the shoe that bears her name. Dubbed simply ‘The Lizzie’, the shoe is fashioned from 100 per cent organic cotton, eco-friendly suede, natural rubber and a bio-based insole. Plus, it’s moulded from 3D scans of Armanto’s feet for optimal performance.

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Armanto continues the virtual tour of the rest of the house, nestled in Highland Park – a vibrant neighbourhood dotted with palm trees and picturesque mountains, just a 10-minute drive from downtown LA. “Growing up, there was only one time I had my own room. I had a single mum, and you know, times were tough,” she says. “So being able to cultivate this place and make it my home – I’m grateful.” Armanto and her husband, Belgian pro skateboarder Axel Cruysberghs, purchased the place – a charming, 1950s mid-century modern house needing a complete renovation – in 2022. Transforming it into their dream home has become a special project for the couple. It was only fitting that we captured them there, mid-renovation, for this story.

Although the house is still a work in progress, there are striking features, most notably the vivid pea-green exterior walls. The interiors will include a nod to Armanto’s Finnish heritage, with the colour palette taking its cues from Paimio Sanatorium, an architectural masterpiece courtesy of Finnish design greats Alvar and Aino Aalto. “I went there two years ago, and I was so inspired by the colours – I know it’s a hospital, but it’s incredible,” Armanto says. When they’re further along in the process, she plans to incorporate flourishes of Danish design, fitting given that the couple met in Copenhagen back in 2016. While Cruysberghs, 29, certainly has his input on the house, he wholeheartedly trusts his wife’s creative vision. “Lizzie comes up with a lot of really sick ideas, and I’m like, ‘damn!’” he tells me over a video call a couple of days later. “When we saw the place, we were like, ‘Whoa, this is it – this is what we want. This is the area we want to be in, the house we want to have.’”

Born to an American mum and a Finnish dad, Armanto grew up under the Los Angeles sun. “My dad was the one who got my younger brother and me skateboards from the toy store,” she says. At first, Armanto and her brother mostly used their boards to “roll down our street on our butts,” however, once her family moved to the coastal city of Santa Monica, her mum signed up the then-14-year-old Lizzie and her brother for the local skatepark. “Then it just became the place where we wanted to be after school,” Armanto says. While her brother gave up skating after an injury, Lizzie continued spending her free time at the park, organically getting increasingly involved in the sport, which didn’t go unnoticed. “A local sponsor decided they wanted to start hooking me up with skateboards, which I was so grateful for because if I could get free boards, I could skate more,” she says.

In 2009, Armanto took part in her first competition. “That’s when I started to meet more of the industry and other people that competed, and I thought, ‘this is the group of people I want to hang out with – this is my community’,” she says. At this point, Armanto still considered skating only as a hobby, but more sponsors kept entering the picture. Three years later, after a fall where she tore her posterior cruciate ligament, she decided it was time to take skateboarding to the next level. “Getting hurt made me realise how much I wanted to make it happen,” Armanto says. “With sports, there’s a window of when it’s your time – I realised I can try this, and if it doesn’t work out, I can go to college, but it’s not going to work the other way around.”

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After finding a manager, which Armanto says was a taboo in the industry at the time, the doors began to open. A major milestone arrived when Vans put Armanto on its team, a much-coveted spot for any aspiring pro. “That was a huge moment, and not just for me, but for women’s skateboarding because it led to a domino effect,” she says. Back then, very few women survived solely off skateboarding, but after Armanto, it started happening for other women, too.

While Armanto notes that there’s still some sexism in the industry – skateboarding being a male-dominated sport – things are moving in the right direction. “Right now, the female skate scene is one of the most exciting things happening in skateboarding because we’re seeing a surge in women and girls of all ages,” she says. For Armanto, the recipe for success lies in having that relentless determination and perseverance. “Even though you look at skating, you think it’s physical,” she says. “But the mental battle is so much more – if you believe you can do it, you’re already like 80 per cent there, which is crazy.”

Armanto’s signature Vans aren’t the only sustainable facet of her lifestyle. When she’s not skating, Armanto likes to go on hikes to learn about her surroundings. Currently, she’s very keen on conservationism, incorporating native plants into her garden to benefit the local ecosystem. “I love where I live and I want myself and the future generations to enjoy the things that I’ve been able to see,” she says.

Perhaps this obsession with nature is due to her Scandinavian heritage. These days, Armanto’s dad and her whole Finnish side of the family reside in southern Finland. She visits at least once a year, often during Helride, a world-renowned skate event that attracts top skateboarders from across the globe to Helsinki. “The Finnish skate scene is so cool – I love that they’re so into DIY culture,” Armanto says, referring to Finland’s famous skateparks such as Suvilahti, which was built entirely by local skaters.

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For a while, due to the physical distance, Armanto had felt disconnected from her Nordic roots. However, that changed during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when Armanto’s more distant Finnish relatives started reaching out, having recognised her rare last name. “I feel like Finland is somewhere where I really want to explore more,” she says, noting that her Finnish side manifests in her shyness and love for liquorice.

Right now, Armanto, who plans to sit out the upcoming Paris Olympics, feels her relationship with skating is shifting – in a good way. In the past few years, dealing with an injury in 2020 alongside the Olympics and participating in two skate videos, she had “felt like a machine”. “Now, I want to enjoy and be present because I think it was really hard to do that through all those things,” she says. Armanto is simply very happy to be home, creating her dream house and garden while finding joy in skateboarding again.