Digging into those 90s Skate Brands Memories
Alright, so someone mentioned 90s skate brands the other day, and bam, it just kinda opened up this whole dusty old box in my head. It’s funny how certain things just stick with you, right? And back then, man, it wasn’t just about slapping a logo on a board. It was a whole different beast.
It was like, your whole identity was wrapped up in this stuff. You didn’t just skate; you lived it. What shoes you had, the t-shirt, the ridiculously baggy jeans – everything screamed what crew you were trying to be a part of. We were all chasing something. The brands, oh man, there were so many iconic ones:
- World Industries
- Blind
- Shorty’s
- Etnies
- éS
- DC Shoes
- Emerica
And if you weren’t living in some cool Cali city, getting your hands on the really good stuff? That was a proper adventure. Or sometimes, just dumb luck.
I remember this one specific mission I was on. I was absolutely losing my mind wanting a pair of those old, super puffy éS shoes – I think they were the Koston 1s, or something that looked just like ’em. The kind of shoe that made your feet look two sizes bigger. My local skate shop, good guys, but they rarely got the super hyped stuff. They’d order it, sure, but it would never show up, or it’d be three months late.
So, how’d I eventually get a pair? This is where the story takes a bit of a turn, and it’s something that, looking back, makes me chuckle and shake my head a bit. It wasn’t exactly by the books, let’s just say.
I had this uncle, let’s call him “Fast Eddie.” Not a skater, not even close. He worked various jobs, always something a bit… on the edge. One of those jobs was at a big distribution warehouse. The kind of place that ships out everything from cheap toys to, apparently, skate shoes. One afternoon, he just shows up at my door, no warning, holding this slightly crushed shoebox.
He just grins and says, “Heard you were looking for some moon boots.” Inside? A pair of those puffy éS kicks. Not the exact color I wanted, they were this weird olive green, but they were the real deal. I was over the moon. I asked him how in the world he got them. He just winked and said, “Let’s just say they took an unscheduled detour.”
At the time, I was just a dumb kid, stoked out of my mind. Didn’t ask any more questions. I wore those shoes into the ground, literally until the soles were flapping. But thinking about it years later, it puts a different spin on things. “Unscheduled detour.” Yeah, right. Eddie was always a bit of a wheeler-dealer.
It made me realize that even with all the cool graphics and the pro skaters we idolized, there was this whole other side to it. The hype was real, and sometimes the way you got things wasn’t always straightforward. It wasn’t all pure passion and kickflips; there was a bit of grit and hustle, and maybe some stuff that wasn’t entirely legit, just to get your hands on a piece of the dream.
And now you see folks paying crazy money for thrashed 90s skate tees or those exact same puffy shoes, all pristine in a collector’s display case. Those olive green éS shoes of mine? Long gone, probably disintegrated in a landfill somewhere. But the memory of how I got them, that’s the part that sticks. It wasn’t about the brand, really. It was about Eddie, the weird warehouse connection, and that feeling of getting something almost unobtainable.
So yeah, 90s skate brands. They’re more than just faded logos on old gear for me. They’re tangled up with these weird, personal stories. Makes you wonder what kind of stories are being made right now with whatever kids are chasing today.
