Our Founders
Youth Lagoon is a small business and still run by its founders Max and Mai. Like many skateboard businesses our shop and brand are a true labour of love and could not exist if we didn't do it with fire and passion. Inspiring our friends to keep their feet in the air and eyes off the phone is what motivates us every day. Of course we would love to concentrate all our time on Youth Lagoon one day — for now we are here to make sure you keep moving.
Mai
Mai was born outside of Hanoi and grew up in a family that has a very heartfelt connection with the production of apparel. Working as a garment engineer and fashion buyer for several well known brands and retailers she started to feel a growing curiosity about what happens to textiles after they reach their end of life. Today, Mai is working for a leading recycling company on moving the fashion industry towards circularity.
When Mai is not obsessing about fiber-to-fiber recycling she can be found cooking Phở according to well-kept recipes, watering a jungle of houseplants she calls family, or trying herself on doing a couple of cross steps on one of our longboards at the local roller skating rink.
Max
Max has been working as a designer in London and in Hamburg, living the grind as a creative for almost 10 years. In 2016 he decided to start his own design business to be able to spend more time with the things that are close to his heart. Of course this was founding Youth Lagoon but also traveling, surfing and skateboarding.
Max has basically spent a lifetime landlocked and can usually be found daydreaming about past and future surf trips, doing laps at local skate parks, being lost in details working on a new design or secretly doing workout routines to keep the paddle power up.
Travel
We always had the chance to travel and to be living in foreign countries for a period of time. Mai was born in a tiny village outside of Hanoi and later returned to Vietnam and Hong Kong as an expat. Max has been living in Australia as a teenager and spent some years in London working in the creative industry.
We believe these kind of experiences generally open your heart in life to different cultures and the unknown. There is hardly anything as daring but also fulfilling as going for a solo surf session on a remote beach in Western Australia. Or to cross the Himalayas. Or to find a ride at a busy bus station outside of Marrakesh.
Travel has also been an important inspiration to what we are trying to create with Youth Lagoon and it always feels very personal sending a parcel to someone in a place we have been to.
