DC Shoes specializes in footwear for skateboarders, snowboarders, BMXers and participants in other extreme sports. The company also sells snowboards and street clothing. With its roots in making unique T-shirts for skaters, the company is now a technical shoe specialist and was the first to produce a technical skateboarding shoe. DC Shoes sponsors sports teams and events, working to create skater-friendly environments.
Beginnings
In 1989, 20-year-old snowboarder Ken Block created his first screen-printed T-shirts for skateboarders. These shirts became the Eightball line, launching a new business. While studying computer design at Palomar Community College, Block met his partner, Damon Way, who helped him sell and distribute the clothes. Damon's pro-skateboarding brother, Danny, would later endorse the new T-shirt line.
With a $10,000 loan from Block's parents, the two men moved into a rented warehouse, bringing in Aaron Lovejoy to do the printing as sales began to skyrocket.
Circus
In 1992, the friends launched the Droors jeans brand. Rob Dyrdek became involved, first as a friend and later as a skateboarding team member, business partner and designer of the first-ever technical skate shoe.
Clay Blehm, an accountant and father of a friend, became the CFO and helped guide the company through its growth. The company incorporated as Circus Distribution, Inc., in 1993 and moved into a 3,000+ square-foot office/warehouse in Carlsbad, California.
Circus introduced its first DC Shoes and the Dub snowboarding outerwear brand in 1994. Danny Way and Colin McKay both put their name on early shoes. In 1994, the company moved again, to a 16,000 square-foot complex.
In 1997, Circus sold off the Dub and Droors brands to concentrate on its core business. The company renamed itself DC Shoes in 1998.
Marketing
DC continued to market aggressively, creating limited edition shoes, and sponsoring skateboard, motocross and surfing teams. It produced two million pairs of shoes in 2001, catering to skateboarders by offering exclusive skate-shop lines.
DC set up events to showcase the pros' skills (for example, Danny Way "skateboarded" from a helicopter in DC-brand shoes). The 1990s saw a growth in the popularity of extreme sports in general, including the Olympic-style X-games, all of which helped improve DC's bottom line.
The company started advertising on TV in 1999, and introduced children's shoes the same year.
2000s
The year 2002 was tough for DC. Billabong International, Inc., tried unsuccessfully to buy the company out. It underwent an IRS audit and then laid off Blehm. He sued DC and Billabong for age discrimination; DC counter-sued for breach of financial responsibility. None of this, however, stopped DC from introducing a skateboarders' outerwear line that same year.
In 2003, the Dyrdek-DC Shoes Foundation partially funded the first skate plaza, a special kind of skate park set up with railings and benches as "props" in Dyrdek's home town of Kettering, Ohio. DC released its first movie, DC Video, and Danny Way and Colin McKay received equity stakes in the company. DC released Fallen shoes, aimed at hardcore skaters.
Today
In 2004, Quiksilver acquired DC Shoes and released a girls' clothing line. The company continued to do research and opened the DC Mountain Lab, the first privately owned facility for development of snowboarding products.
With Yamaha, it developed the DC/Yamaha SXViper Mountain snowmobile, designed to get snowboarders to the powder.
