RD-9501AW.
For the next eight days, it's going to be DC week. The company has both its share of fans and detractors. I probably fall right in the middle. It's not something that I would wear today, but I can't say I hate them or anything. I've worn DCs before and liked them. They had quite the team back in the 1990s and brought a few new things to skateboarding. That was the spark that made me want to spend a week looking at their old ads.
DC Shoes started out from Droors Clothing. The team was initially Danny Way and Colin McKay. They soon expanded to include Rob Dyrdek and Rudy Johnson. They also gave Rob and Rudy pro models, which was kind of the start of pros having signature shoes.
In the early to mid 1990s, a pro model sneaker was relatively scarce. Steve Caballero and Salman Agah had models with Vans, which was really about it. Natas had a shoe on Etnies, but I don't think those lasted much past 1992. You had to be a big name pro in order to justify having a piece of footwear with your name on it. This of course led to pros taking jabs at other pros in interviews as to whether or not so and so deserved to have their name stitched on the tongue of a shoe. All of this seems rather strange compared to how skateboarding is today, where somebody turns pro and then follows that up with a shoe model.
This ad turned a few heads when it came out because Dyrdek certainly was an established and talented pro, but he wasn't necessarily thought of as being pro shoe worthy. He helped his cause by dropping the nollie nosegrind down a handrail.
Paul "Skin" Phillips took the photo. Atiba Jefferson filmed the trick.
Transworld - November 1995 Volume 13 Number 11
4 comments:
I'm a brand loyal guy---when it comes to everything--almost to a fault I guess. And I'm an admitted DC Shoe ONLY buyer...
DC has always cut a wider shoe that my freakishly wide 13 EE/EEEs can fit in, which has always kept me in them for about the past decade...plus they are also comfortably padded when I decide it's time to jump on board and go hit the streets with 7 year old Son.
That old Dyrdek shoe looks better than the newer ones by a mile....
First Dyrdek shoe was terrible. Nylon lace loops tore so easy. I had the first Rudy's. Solid shoe.
Their team was stacked at the beginning and their shoes were decent. I wore my fair share of dc's back then.
There was one model that I liked and only ever found them online so I only ever skated 2 pairs of them. They were plainer and iirc slimmer than the rest of the line. Can't remember the name of them. Around the same time as the Boxer and the Clocker. If I had to guess, 96 or 97.
scarce.
Fixed. There was also a lowercase footwear that should have been Shoes to begin with.
One of my friends at college had the Dyrdek 1's. They looked pretty neat, but I don't think he ever skated in them. The first batch of DC's all looked really good. I guess for better or worse they tried out new things.
I can't see lace loops being something to brag about. I don't think I ever had a pair of shoes with those that I cared for. Maybe the Daewon 3's, but I don't remember if those even had lace loops.
I'm still looking for an ad with both Rudy and his shoe.
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