10 Defunct Skate Brands We'd Like to See Come Back

Image via Complex Original

In the mid-'90s, there was a lot of talk of a self-contained East Coast industry. And though that never really came to be, a few brands really held things down for a minute. Nicotine, a wheel company from Washington, D.C., was one of them. The original team - guys like Pepe Martinez, Andy Stone, and Chris Hall - was legendary. The ads, meanwhile, highlighted just how advanced the city's scene was. But by 1998, the company, which had spawned a couple of other brands, had run its course, supposedly due to shaky financial management owing to a gambling problem on the part of its owner. This really is one of those cases where we'll always wonder what could have been.

In the late '80s and very early '90s, H-Street was easily one of the most progressive companies around. So it made sense that it would give Ron Allen, one of its oldest pros, his own sub-brand. Ron called the company Life and assembled a team that included guys like John Reeves, Kien "Donger" Lieu, and a young Sean Sheffey, whose part in the classic A Soldier's Story changed street skating. When a piece of the crew defected for Plan B, however, H-Street floundered, and Life faded. Ron Allen - who cracked 50 last year - is still around and skating, though.

Maybe it was the Ed Templeton series that Epicly Later'd recently ran, but we're feeling nostalgic for the New Deal right now. To be specific, though, we're talking about the company's earliest incarnation, when it was still under the art direction of Andy Howell and counted guys like Ed, Armando Barajas, and Ron Knigge as riders. By about 1994, though, it had morphed into something that we would rather not remember. But its early graphics - like Justin Girard's "Pimpball Wizard" board - are some of our favorites. And its first couple of videos are still worth a watch today.

By the time Droors emerged, skate gear was nothing new. But the San Diego company's clothes were instantly the shit, in part because of who wore them - dudes like Danny Way (whose brother, Damon, co-founded the company), Sean Sheffey, and more. Droors seemed to grow in tandem with skating's push toward more technical gear. And yeah, some of the stuff it produced - elaborate nylon tracksuits, for one - look kind of ridiculous now. But in the mid-'90s, it totally made sense, and Droors was everywhere. After it changed hands, though, it slowly faded. And by the early '00s, when fits got a lot slimmer, we knew the days of skate clothing lines that were heavily inspired by Polo and Nautica were done.

Few skaters are as respected as Sal Barbier, a former H-Street and Plan B pro. So when he started Aesthetics - after his first company, 23, failed - we had high expectations. But while the company developed a cult following, it never really blew up. Still, it managed to produce the unassailable Ryde or Die Vol. 1, a full-length video that featured the definitive Rob Welsh part, along with solid sections from Joey Pepper, Kevin Taylor, John Igei, and Clyde Singleton. A couple of years later, though, Sal took a job with Zoo York, and he brought his team with him, thus concluding Aesthetics' run. Its boards - including the classic "Baby Mama" series - remain heavy favorites to this day.

At the height of the East Coast craze came Illuminati, a company backed by Zoo York and headed by Ricky Oyola, the Philly local who inspired legions of kids to skate eight-inch-plus boards and ride 58-millimeter wheels. As its name suggests, its imagery was inspired by conspiracy theories, which meant that its ads looked like nothing out at the time. But Illuminati was only around for about eight months, the first six of which, according to Ricky, didn't even see boards produced. And though demand for its stuff was high, a copyright issue sank the brand before it could really make moves. The team regrouped under East Coast Urethane, Nicotine's parent company, to form Silverstar, a similar company that also wasn't long for this world.

In the mid-'90s, when the East Coast was just beginning to get its due, San Francisco-based Deluxe launched Metropolitan, a wheel company with a New York City-inspired aesthetic. Its team included guys like Bobby Puleo and Keith Hufnagel, but it was its ads, shot by Ari Marcopoulos, that really made the brand what it was. After a couple of years, though, Deluxe would abruptly drop Metropolitan, supposedly because it had begun to outsell Spitfire, the distributor's flagship wheel company. If you skated in the '90s, you probably saw this as a grand injustice.

A couple of years after it started, the New Deal was getting big, and Andy Howell split off to form Underworld Element, a more tightly focused brand. In 1993, Justin Girard, who had been with the company for a minute, did the same thing, and Mad Circle was born. The original team - Justin, Chris Fissell, and Mike Cao - was no joke. And its early boards, complete with art by Twist, aka Barry McGee, are indisputable classics. It also helped introduce the skate world to Scott Johnston and Rob Welsh, both of whom produced timeless parts for the company. So it came as a surprise when, in 1998, MC shut its doors, apparently due to a strained relationship with Giant, its distributor. The business end of skating is never pretty.

Few companies are as revered as Menace, the brand Kareem Campbell started in the wake of 1993's mass-rider exodus from World Industries. The logo - the classic star - was instantly ubiquitous. And the team, which included Fabian Alomar, Billy Valdes, Joey Suriel, and Eric Pupecki, was tight. But, as Pupecki himself said on Epicly Later'd, when a company is forced to change its name multiple times, things can get shaky. By 1999, the brand was known as City Stars. And while its long-awaited full-length video - first teased in 1996's Trilogy - finally dropped in 2001, within about a year, the whole thing was pretty much done. We'll always have the Menace T-shirts and stickers that bobshirt.com printed a while back, though.

Natas Kaupas' contribution to skating can't be overstated. Following a lengthy tenure with Santa Monica Airlines, he defected to World Industries, where he formed 101, a brand that was way ahead of its time. For proof, watch its sections in 20 Shot Sequence or Trilogy, the intros to which alone show how advanced Natas was. 101's team, meanwhile, included riders like Jason Dill and Gino Iannucci, and, earlier, Eric Koston, Kris Markovich, and Gabriel Rodriguez. But after a run of five years or so, Natas moved on to other pursuits. We like his stuff now, but if he ever decides to launch 101 again, we won't be mad.