What's a LIVNFLOW
& Who is Jesse?
Skateboarding in Graz, Austria
Finger Painted Board Art in Venice Beach, California
Redwoods during California fires, Santa Cruz
What's a LIVNFLOW?
LIVNFLOW is a mentality, a way of life. Once you’ve pulled back the curtains on life & reality itself you get to a point & realize there’s nothing more to do in this life but to live & flow. When you’re in the Livnflow state of being, you are in the moment, breathing, in the flow, nailing every trick, smashing every goal, everything you seek is seeking you. Think about a time where you were in just the right place at just the right time, you were livin’ in the flow.
Our goal is to Create The Best! Sneakers & Clothing that actually make sense. In an industry where the bar is so low, we aim to educate people about what materials they are wearing, its effect on them & the world around them.
These sneakers are really for those who Seek The Best. People who ask questions like, How could I perform better? Am I maximizing my body’s potential? What is the best product on the market? What brand actually cares about the end user? What brand is thinking about the world around them? What brand can I actually stand behind?
Yeah our goal is to create the most dope, skin friendly, ergonomic, comfortable sneakers and textiles. But we also want to stand for something, and be a reminder to all those who see and wear our goods to BREATHE, BE STOKED NOW, & LIVNFLOW.
Who's Jesse?
Jesse Palen, born and raised in and around California’s San Francisco Bay Area. Under the influence of the Bay’s culture it was only natural for him to get into sneaker culture.
Where are you from?
“I moved around a lot as a kid, we lived in the east bay in Livermore, Dublin, probably some other places that I was too young to remember. Went to school in Lathrop, a do nothing go nowhere town. Later after getting kicked out of the house at 17 I lived in Walnut Creek, San Jose, Campbell, SF, Santa Cruz. At 19 I moved to Hawaii and lived on Oahu and Big Island for several years. So when people ask where I’m from, I’ll usually just say around SF to save myself the explanation lol”
When did you start LIVNFLOW?
“Haha, Livnflow started as a travel blog back in 2017, I had just left the states and was traveling through Europe and Mexico. I did a little pole on Instagram and everyone liked the name Livnflow, so I ran with it.”
How did you get into sneakers?
“As a kid, finding sneakers was f#$%ing difficult. My foot was wide, It was hard to find shoes that fit and didn’t cause heel slip. Not to mention, my mom would always try to buy the cheapest shoe she could find for me. $40 was high to her. And I DESTROYED shoes, I only ever had 1 pair at a time so they would be put through the ringer. I was an athletic kid, always outside and competing at something.”
“In middle school my sister and I slept outside a mall to get the Air Jordan 11 & 12 pack for her friend, she later bought me my first pair of jordans. Some non numbered pair with patent leather and a clear sole. They were the coolest shoes I’d ever worn. At some point in high school I got a job and started collecting a pair or two. Then my senior year and 1 year after that, I started reselling and collecting. I had a pretty solid collection, but it was all for not.”
“I moved to Hawaii and lived there for about a year, in this time, I walked around mostly barefoot or in slippers (Hawaiian for flip flops) . I even bought my first pair of Vibram five finger hiking shoes and they were fantastic on the trails out there. After a year or so I went back home and tried putting on shoes from my collection, and quickly realized none of them fit. My foot grew! My foot was now longer and wider than ever and my old size 10 wasn’t gonna cut it. I started wearing shoes size 10.5 to 12 just to get my foot in them! Hahaha”
“Fast forward to 2021 I was given a demo pair of vivobarefoot shoes with an extra piece of leather poorly attached to the side and toe box, basically just a really rough concept for a barefoot skate shoe. I loved that for the first time ever, my foot felt comfortable and not like it was getting choked to death like every other shoe. To my knowledge that was the very first attempt at a barefoot skate shoe. Later that year, those shoes were looking ugly and my foot widened even more, Vivobarefoot sizing is too narrow and I needed to look elsewhere for my next skateable barefoot shoe. It didn’t exist. So I figured why not spend my only $1000 on materials to make some myself.”
“The next 2 months I would eat, sleep and breathe shoe making. There was little to no info on the internet for how to do this, and zero for what I was setting out to do. I taught myself nearly everything, with a tiny bit of help from a discord group and glueing advice from a shoe maker in Ireland. Grueling! Beginning of 2022, I created the very first barefoot skate shoe. It looked cool, but it was way too big for its intended purpose, and ended up being more of a winter boot while I was in Ireland. I would go on the next 9 months to create 7 more shoes,one being my new daughter’s very first shoes, some moccasins. I made a different style every time, every style taught me different things, and all of them were hand stitched, which makes the shoe take 4x as long to create. Probably spent a full month of work to create just 1 pair. Making these shoes was easily the most difficult thing I’d ever done & the only thing I’ve ever put so much of myself into.”
“And after 2 years of skating all of those, that brings us to here #9.”