DC Shoes

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DC Shoes

Type	Public corporation
Founded	1993
Headquarters	Vista, California
Key people	Ken Block, Founder; Damon Way, co-founder
Products	shoes, apparel
Website	www.dcshoecousa.com

DC Shoes is an American based footwear company in Vista, CA founded in 1993 who specialize in producing shoes for skateboarding as well as snowboarding boots and outerwear. They are often referred to as DCSHOECOUSA. On March 10, 2004, DC Shoes was acquired by Quiksilver.

1 History
2 Trivia
3 The DC Shoes Skateboarding Team
4 External links

[edit] History

DC Shoes was created by two main owners, Ken Block and Damon Way, older brother of professional skateboarder Danny Way. A few years later, the two hired an accountant by the name of Clayton Blehm, who had just lost his job a few months earlier and was living in his daughter's garage. He was later given the chance to own one third of the company, yet he refused the offer, only to reconsider two years later. He has since been dismissed from the company which resulted in a lawsuit for wrongful dismissal and a counter-suit by DC[1], which has since been settled.[2]

The company was originally called "Eightball" and only made T-shirts for skate shops. The owners were sent a cease and desist letter by a man in Seattle who had allegedly already copyrighted the name "Eightball." The man had made an offer to allow them to use the name "Eightball" if they had given him a large sum of money and a cut of the action. The newly hired Clay Blehm refused the offer, and they began to look for another name. The owners then created a new line of clothing called Droors Clothing, in which they create ads spoofing famous ads ranging from Calvin Klein to famous rapper's CD covers. Famous rap and hip-hop groups "Cypress Hill" and "The Beastie Boys" sported their clothing. DC originally stood for Droors Clothing Footwear, but since the sale of Droors (which is now defunct), DC no longer has any ties to Droors and is simply DC Shoes.

The three owners then created new sub companies like Dub Snowboard Clothing, which sported an urban feel that lead to them being extremely popular with the hip-hop subculture. The company also published Blunt Snowboard Magazine which mainly featured ads of new, small and independent companies. Blunt was eventually sold to Big Brother Magazine, and later ceased publication.

DC Shoes manufactures footwear for all types of extreme sports, including skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX, motocross, and surfing, for men, women, kids, and toddlers.

They have released a video, entitled "The DC Video" which featured a part by Danny Way in which he skates the DC "Mega Ramp," a series of enormous skateboarding ramps. It has been released on VHS, DVD, and UMD for PSP.

DC recently sponsored the world's first skate plaza, which was built in Kettering, Ohio. The skate plaza, a dream of Rob Dyrdek, is billed as the first skate park for street skateboarders.

[edit] Trivia

The numbers 43 and 07 have been used on certain clothing designs in the past. The 4 and the 3 is an alphanumerical representation of the letters D and C respectively, and added together they equal 7.

During the company's beginning, in which they did not have a lot of money coming in, Ken Block and Damon Way had been playing a game of basketball with one of those "one dollar plastic mini hoops and ball". It got quite rough and Ken Block had one of his teeth knocked out. At the dentists office, Block decided to get a gold tooth put in instead of a normal fake tooth. This gave Ken Block the look of a rich company owner. Later on, he got it removed and replaced with a new one.

"Ken Block had the gold tooth before he was even rich. Now he's rich and the gold tooth's gone. What's up with that?"

-Aaron Meza, editor, Skateboarder magazine

In 1992, rumors emerged about DC shoes, including:
- Eightball was funded by all-night raves at its industrial park
- The Eightball office had been shot up in a drive-by shooting. (Damon Way, who owned a shotgun (for protection) had brought it to the warehouse to clean it while Block had been working on an ad. The gun went off in Way's hands, and the round shot off the cement floor and into the window, shooting over a truck that sat outside.)
- DC Shoes allowing Nike own 50% of the company

The crew poked fun at the rumors, handing out thousands of T-shirts at the 2000 Action Sports Retailer trade show with the DC logo on the front, saying "Don't say anything but..." and on the back saying "I heard DC...

was sold to World Industries.
was bought by Quicksilver, Ken got all the money, fired Damon so Danny quit.
is going public.
now sells for Footlocker.
is going out of business because they lost the whole team.
sold out to everyone.
is making a new shoe co. with Jamie Thomas
fired Danny due to inability to skate because of an arm injury from jumping out of a helicopter.

At the very bottom of the list it ended with the line "Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see."