HISTORY OF SKATE SHOES - PT 1

They are for their time. It’s interesting to think that if they got their product right, they could actually be really huge now.
Yeah I don’t know, I just think when skateboarding died in about ‘82, they died with it. I remember in Skateboarder or Thrasher – they had a Hobie sale – five dollars for a pair. You could send away to this one liquidating company for kryptonite wheels for five dollars, decks for ten dollars. The death of skateboarding killed a lot of brands like that, I guess they just went back into their original business again.

Do you remember kids wearing Converse?
Dwayne Peters rode for Santa Cruz and he was one of the first guys to wear Converse in a magazine, and one of the first gnarly guys that bought punk rock into skateboarding. Dwayne was hard core and had leopard spots in his hair and he was a rad skater, he was around in about ‘78, and rode for Hobie and I think soon after ditched that whole scene and rode for Santa Cruz. Him, Steve Alba and Steve Olsen all wore Converse. Now and again they would wear Blazers but that’s when I first remember seeing them. Before then Eddie Algerra was another guy that wore them as well.

And the Clyde? Who wore Pumas?
I didn’t notice them as much.

There’s a classic shot of either Cab or Hosoi wearing a Puma on the left foot and another brand on the right foot?
It’s Steve Cab, it’s a Puma and a Vans – frontside rock n’ roll slide, yeah. Yeah that’s a mid-eighties shot but in the seventies I never noticed anyone wearing Pumas.