Who is Don Brown?
Having been involved with Sole Tech since the earliest days, Don Brown is the perfect Ambassador for Etnies, éS and Emerica. Positive, insightful, knowledgable, energetic, always joking and totally invested in skateboarding. He is one of those special human beings who helps make the skateboarding culture so great.
He has had his work cut out for him recently and has been doing the rounds helping to explain what Nidecker ownership means for each of the brands and where they are headed.
We were lucky enough to have Don drop by the Supereight office recently and had the opportunity to ask him some questions, including deep discussions as to whether or not my friend Adrian did, in fact, invent the Drop-in at the Malibu Dog Bowl in Nottingham in the late ’70s, why the E on the side of the Lo Cut had to be removed and just how tech the Natas pro shoe from the late 1980s was.
The interview
Thanks for coming over Don and well done on surviving a night in Nottingham! I was a little bit worried when I saw those pictures of you out and about on your Instagram story.
I know, you haven’t seen the stab marks on my back yet. I survived!
So, you’ve come over to the UK after being at the Amsterdam sales (NDK Skate) meeting?
Yep. I survived that too!
Nice. So, you’ve got loads of new shoes coming out, and I really wanted to talk about some of them because there’s a shoe that’s dear to my heart. The original Etnies Lo-cut.
Ooh, the original Now we’re talking about like 1992 / 93 for the Lo Cut.
Yep, right. So I’ve bored every single Soletech employee I’ve met with this. When I was 14, I was living in Bahrain (in the Gulf), where I got a CCS catalogue. The Lo-Cut had the big sideways E on the side. Ronnie Creager and all those dudes were riding it and I was just like, that is the coolest shoe. I ordered it via surface mail and it took a lifetime to arrive. When it did, there was no E on the side! What happened?
Oh, the Lowdown! Well, I mean, just to put some context in that era, the 90s, and specifically around 93 is when skateboarding was influenced by street culture, especially around the rave culture and it was a period where Sal Barbier had come out with the Ralph Lauren polo style graphic.
It kind of triggered this whole ‘borrow from corporate culture’ thing. So, basically, I was working with Pierre (owner of Etnies) at the time. It was just me and him doing whatever it took to just make the shoes happen. And we were just looking at everything going on within the street culture. Everyone was borrowing from corporate culture, so we designed a shoe that’s very, kind of similar to other shoes out there.
Regarding the Lo-Cut, we just put a big E on it’s side, on the side of the shoe. Obviously, if you know what I mean, to just put a big E there, with the three lines right there, it was obviously pretty close to another athletic brand out there. I think we know which one we’re talking about…
So, the shape of that E over time changed to become more like an E. Originally it was just straight lines, but our friends in Germany – they weren’t having it. So for Germany we made a shoe with just the little circle Etnies logo and that was called the Low Down. That’s what you got.
So, the current sideways E logo is sufficiently different so that on the reissue shoe that’s coming out next spring, the E is back on the side of the shoe?
Yep. People love that shoe and they’ve been asking for it to come back So yeah, it’s a good one!
You kept it quite similar to the original and you’ve put this kind of PU lining in the heel the 90’s shoes had. Was that difficult to source? Normally modern skate shoes have a terry lining kind of material.
No – I mean, we’ve been making skate shoes for many years now. Etnies was the first skater-owned shoe brand out there, basically since all the way back to 1986.
Really through that 90’s period is when, you know, we really took it to the next level. We kind of got the hang of it after 40 years of doing this, we kind of know where to source things.
Talking about being able to source various bits and pieces let’s talk about the first pro shoe, the Natas. Nik Baker, our Etnies sales agent, was saying that to do a shoe of that complexity now would force the price point way up. It’d probably be like £150 to £200. So would it be prohibitively expensive to make that shoe?
That’s because it had all sorts of embossed bits on the rubber heel and was really patterned and everything. I mean, yeah, there’s a lot of complexity to that shoe. During that period of time, that shoe also had a rubber called Goodyear 500, which was pretty ahead of its time. It had Sorbathane crash pads inside for heel protection. So that shoe was really, really advanced, and the quality of the materials has always been high from Etnies. I remember when that shoe came, and when the Etnies General came to the US, it was the most expensive shoe out there, just because of all the detailing and the quality of the material. So, let me ask you: Did you ever try the Natas shoe?
Yes! I got it them from Plus Skates in Florida.
I have a photo of me skating them, in the background the pic are these dark, grey clouds but those aren’t actually clouds there. The oil smoke from when Saddam Hussein set fire to the oil wells in Kuwait. It kept it kept the temperature down for the whole summer, so we were stoked. Although poisoned.
We’ve had a lot of reissues come through from you guys (éS, Etnies and Emerica) recently. The éS 298 is like a semi-reissue because you’ve got the Evant sole unit on it. Were you tempted to give it a runner-style sole like the Koston 2 or did you guys want to stick with the flat sole because it’d be more practical?
Yeah, for sure. Realistically, I mean, this sole (from the éS Evant) is a beautiful sole just with all the lines and the shapes. It’s very 90s. And then for all of the riders – it’s TJ Rodgers favourite outsole just for skating and Kelly (Hart) loves it. Wade (Desarmo) loves it. So, it’s just one of those things – why reinvent the wheel? You know, it’s just like, we can just use the sole and plonk it on straight away.
If we did the original sole, it would take way longer to bring to market. It would cost way more. So, we just said, hey, let’s just do this. There’s always time down the road if we want to be more precise and rebuild it to the exact specs. But the overall reaction for the 298 has been really strong.
You’ve got the black/yellow coming out for holiday 2024. Are there more colourways lined up in future seasons?
For sure. Yeah. There are some really, really good ones. They’re all good! And then the 298, the name came from the fact that the shoe originally came out in February 1998. The same with the 197. It was like in 1997.
Was it 1997? It feels like it was even earlier than that, but yeah, it makes perfect sense.
Because éS came out in 1995, so it came out a couple years after.
So on your Nine Club, you discuss all the corpo brands and stuff like that, and obviously there’s a lot of interest in brands like New Balance at the moment. People often say these corporate brands produce such great quality products. I’ve always felt that Soletech is easily as good a product, but you guys have a different situation where your brand isn’t segmented. For example, Etnies has styles from a Barge through to a Marana. The Marana is going to last for absolutely ages. And a Barge is more of a lifestyle shoe. People are comparing your entire range with those few skate shoe models that the Corpo brand is making. They’ve been able to put an awful lot of resources in and marketing too. So their shoe is actually equivalent in quality to a Marana and it shouldn’t be compared to a lifestyle Etnies shoe. Would you say it’s fair that people are doing that? To me, it seems like they’re not comparing apples with apples.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s something that we put a lot of time and energy into making sure that our quality and the comfort of the shoes is the best out there. So to your point, people probably are looking at the shoes that may be a lower entry point shoe versus shoes like the OG-1, 298, Muska and Marana. I mean, when you look at those shoes and you feel them, it’s just incredible. Beautifully made. Yeah. There’s nothing like it. So yeah, quality has always been high on our list. And stash pockets! (looking at the Muska) Do you have anything hidden in your stash pocket?
I should, but, uh, yeah, it wouldn’t be anything interesting, like, maybe a bit of a protein bar or something.
A protein bar? Come on. Come on. What do you hide in your stash pocket? That’s a big question right there.
This summer, I went out to Paris, for the men’s street, which the Nidecker guys kindly paid for, I met some interesting people. Seth from Zumiez was one of them. He was talking about how the Etnies Callicut had come into existence because they were really hyped on it and he actually was really keen to do the Snake with you guys. He said that that was basically a gut decision. He looked at that shoe from your back catalogue, loved it and was like, I think that’s going to hit the current zeitgeist or whatever. Let’s go for it. When you’re making decisions on shoes like that, is that how it works? Is it like a gut decision? Do you guys back it up with some sort of like sales data or anything like that? Or is it just like, we love that shoe, let’s do it.
We’ve been doing this for so long, so we kind of have seen the cycles of trends of fashion and what comes in and out. Right now, the 90s is big, so everyone wants shoes from the 90s. We’ve got Billie Eilish rocking between the Etnies Kingpin and the Callicuts. She’s even rocking the éS Accels.
Then you’ve got Bieber and all those guys. They’re helping that 90s trend kind grow on the mainstream level. So then for an account like Zumiez, they cater to that lifestyle side of skateboarding, which is on the outer rings, you know, outside of the core. So those things definitely complement each other and drive a lot of the trends out there. So then, from Seth’s standpoint, he gets to see all of the brands out there and he’s a huge, fan of éS, Etnies and Emerica. So, he would just be like, “hey, you got to bring this shoe back”. It’s like the Emerica Mute. It’s a shoe that’s going to be coming back, that you’re going to be seeing soon. And then the Snake was one. It’s like, yep, the Snake is coming back – it’s on point with what we need to help fill the spaces on the store’s shoe wall with something that’s unique and different. I love it. Nick Garcia like loves that shoe, he’s been crushing it.
This is an important one. It’s a big one. So my friend Adrian is about the same age as you.
Oh? So he’s 18?
Yeah, exactly. 18 or 19. And he tells me, with a wry smile, that back in the 70s, at the Malibu Dog Bowl in Nottingham, he invented the drop in.
Wow.
I can’t confirm or deny this, so, I’m turning to you. So can you tell me, did he invent the drop in?
Do you mean the Adrian drop? What do you mean? The elevator drop? It was never called that. It was never called an elevator. I always called it…. I call it today, The Adrian drop. Okay. I mean…if that helps.
That’s it. That’s perfect. So there you go, Adrian, I believe you now.
Thanks, Adrian. I mean, every time I drop in, I think of you and I appreciate everything you’ve done. For me and my family. See, I’m getting emotional right now. When am I going to meet Adrian? Because like so many, I’ve got his tattoo on my back. with a picture of an Adrian drop.
So it happened at the dog bowl, Malibu dog bowl in Nottingham. Sometime in the 70s, Adrian, teenage Adrian, invented the drop in.
There you go. You Heard it here. Yeah, good job, Adrian. Thank you. Hall of Fame.
Perfect. Well, thanks Don, that’s amazing. Thank you.