Category
Brand
Brand
Alien Workshop
Alien Workshop was created in 1990 near Dayton, Ohio, by Chris Carter, Mike Hill, and Neil Blender. Around this time, skateboarding was mainly based in California, so starting this brand gave way to a new midwestern company. Their first video, “Memory Screen” (1991), featured skate mogul Rob Dyrdeck. AWS would also come out with another video in 1997 featuring famous skater Josh Kalis who would stay with the brand for over ten years. In the 2000s, AWS was under the parent company DNA Distribution, which joined them with Habitat Skateboards and Reflex Bearings. This gave way to many internal relationships, such as Guy Mariano, who was sponsored by Reflex, and Danny Way, who went on to restart Plan B skateboards. In 2008, AWS moved under Burton as their parent company. Under Burton, AWS released the video “Mind Field” with some big names, including Steve Berra, Mikey Taylor, Tyler Bledsoe, and Dylan Rieder. William Strobeck was also hired to film this part, leading to him having more opportunities in the future with brands like Supreme. In 2012, news broke that Rob Dyrdeck had bought AWS but would be short-lived as PVH would buy AWS and only have Rob Dyrdeck as a minority shareholder in 2014. During this time, though, AWS would be in a hiatus period, ceasing operations for a while to plan a re-launch. In 2015, AWS relaunched its “Bunker Down” video, which premiered in Thrasher Magazine. In 2016, operations were centered back in Ohio, led by Mike Hill, who stated that Dyrdeck was no longer a part of the operation. Today, AWS is another staple skate brand with riders like Joey Guevara, Sammy Montano, and Frankie Spears. AWS continues to collaborate with other brands, such as Thrasher Magazines, and although the last entire team video was in 2020, riders continue to pump out individual street parts. Alien Workshop is a great story of a rise, then fall, and then another rise back up.
Author: Courtney Pegram
