The skaters and designers who were there tell the story of how the skate world went from Chucks to megabucks.

As told to Rebecca Louie; Illustration by EAMO
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(PHOTOS) SALABANZI, BIEBEL: MICHAEL BURNETT; WOOD GRAIN: ISTOCK PHOTO (PHOTOS) ALVA: WARREN BOLSTER COURTESY OF CONCRETE WAVE EDITIONS FROM THE BOOK LEGACY OF WARREN BOLSTER; JOHNSON: JEFF NEWTON Off the Beach, Off the Wall: Surfing heads inland...

Pierre André Senizergues, etnies founder: In the 1960s, surfers were riding skateboards barefoot by the beach.

Ken Block, DC Shoes co-founder: When I started skating in the ’70s, skateboarding was so new, there weren’t really skate-specific shoes.

Senizergues: I bought cheap Monoprix shoes—they were like the French Kmart. I remember staying in my garage gluing all the time. I’d buy a piece of leather and I would try to put it on top of the side of shoes. And I would put extra rubber in. And the shoes would still always fall apart.

Steve Van Doren, Vans: Only three companies in the 1900s made vulcanized shoes: Keds, Converse, and a company that went out of business.

Ben Preuss, adidas: Shelltoes have always been used by skaters, Converse have always been used by skaters.

Tony Hawk, skate legend: The biggest issue with Chuck Taylors is that you would burn through the side doing ollies right away, and through the toes doing kneeslides.

Van Doren: My dad started Vans in 1966—by the mid-’70s Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta were wearing our shoes.

Stacy Peralta, skate legend: Not only were they the first on the scene, but they supported skateboarding when no other shoe companies wanted to be involved.

Van Doren: The first skate shoe was born on March 18, 1976. We put an Off the Wall heel label on, a term the guys used when they were skating pools. It was basically a canvas upper with a vulcanized sole. We called it the Style 95.

Hawk: I thought I became a better skater when I finally got a pair of Vans. I was happy to just stare at the box when I brought them home.

Van Doren: The next shoe was the Style 36 in ’77. It had leather on the front and the back and had a side stripe—now it’s called the Old Skool.

Steve Caballero, skate legend: When I first went to the skate park in 1978, I saw people wearing Vans. I got some of the low-tops—the Old Skools—first. The grooves hit really nice on the grip tape.

Kevin Imamura, Nike: The three shoes that you would see most often through the late ’70s were Jack Purcells or Chuck Taylors, Vans, and Nike Blazers.

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