Skateboarding - the fashion

            
            
             Over the last 40 years the skateboarding industry has had its ups and downs. But the popularity of its clothing and fashion have increased beyond just that of the Skateboarders themselves. Many people in today's society wear clothing and apparel that originally started as a brand made for skateboarders.
             The skate shoe is a key feature of the image of a skateboarder. Specifically designed skate shoes were originally made from a suede material. They were fairly plain to start of with by having a simple design and some shoes had extra stitching or padding around the Ollie area (Ollie area being the part of the shoe on the outside that makes contact with the skateboard when tricks are done). They had gum rubber soles, which were usually an orange colour. You could always tell a skater by the state of their shoes because usually there would be rips or holes on the edge of the shoe and in places other than what would have been used in general use. These shoes became very popular with the Grunge and alternative styles of music listeners, a lot of who were skaters themselves. Nowadays skate Shoe Company have advanced and changed the style of their products. Skate shoes have in many cases strayed away from the original suede design and have started to use different sorts of rubber and synthetic padding to make the shoes stronger and look different. By doing this Skate shoe brands have been able to differentiate themselves from each other and also allow themselves to market and sell their products to people outside of skateboarding. The general consumer is now buying shoes that were originally designed and built to handle the rough day-to-day activities of skating because they are seen to be trendy. An example of this is the company DC SHOE CO USA. Their shoes first were made for skateboarding and were built to withstand skating abuse. These shoes were also sometimes difficult to find because they were only sold in skate stores.