HISTORY OF SKATE SHOES - PT 2

Aside from Randy’s, everyone else in this era looked like surfers in bare feet. The early LIFE magazine article is interesting, it was quite anti-skating...
In history people normally like simple explanations. So today you still can read that surfers have invented skateboarding. Well it’s more the point that surfers made it very popular in the late fifties to the mid sixties. The bloodline that leads to skateboarding is very mixed – from ice skates to rollerskates, the Flexi-flyer and Orangecrate scooters to the first garage-made skateboards. But the influence of surfers was a huge impact! They were imitating the moves and styles from surfing and so the first articles about sidewalk surfing appeared in the early sixties in surf magazines. The famous Life cover with Patti McGee doing a barefooted handstand was a hoax to skateboarding culture. In May 1965, they portrayed skateboarding as ‘Mania and Menace!’ Next to accident statistics and gruesome tales of rebellious misconduct, the article featured a picture of a mangled foot. ‘It’s easier to get bloody than fancy’ the article concluded, and upright citizens should leave it alone. The article was one nail in the coffin for the death of the first skateboard wave.

Well some things never change. The story from the second era is really all about Vans – what made the brand so cool?
They had no other competitors in the early days, and they definitely had good grip for skating. Originally intended as sailing or beach shoes, Vans became aware of their skate following, so they produced style #95 (designed by Tony Alva) followed by style #34, then hightops called style #38. They sponsored a lot of skateboarders and contests, and they were the first shoe company to advertise in early Skateboarder magazines. So everybody knew them. Vans also was the first company which paid a professional skateboarder to wear their shoes and so Stacey Peralta became the first to receive endorsement cheques from a shoe company.