British Knights was a popular line of footwear that was almost as omnipresent as the first Gulf War, Crystal Pepsi and Jesus combined in the early 1990s. If you were a child or adolescent growing up at that time it’s a given that you either owned, or desperately wanted, a pair of British Knights.
If I had to compare British Knights to something more contemporary, I would point to Sketchers from earlier in this decade. Both were trendy lines of footwear that turned heads, were poorly made by sweatshop labor in some godforsaken corner of southeast Asia and sold at incredibly inflated prices. I suppose the same could be said of Nike or Adidas, but at least those brands have an above average track record of performance at all levels of organized sport around the world.
Founded in 1980 by Jack Schwartz Shoes Inc. of New York, British Knights (or BKs as they were commonly called) were first released in the United States in 1986. The brand didn’t begin to garner recognition though until the early 1990s when the shoes and related apparel were prominently displayed in hip-hop music videos by the likes of Public Enemy and MC Hammer(yes, those two acts were just mentioned in the same sentence.) In fact, Hammer did several commercials for British Knights at the pinnacle of his career and earned $138 million for troubles. This may help to explain how he could afford the ostentatious home and wardrobe that were the hallmarks of his image.
In addition to the commercial spots from Hammer, BKs were an ever-present prize for contestants on several Nickelodeon game shows of the period including Double Dare, GUTS, and Nick Arcade. They were essentially the door prize for goons that couldn’t complete Double Dare’s famed obstacle courses, or the almost impossible series of challenges that concluded each episode of Nick Arcade. I can only assume that several children were greeted by Nickelodeon producers following the tapings of these shows with words along the lines of, “Hey kid, your lack of athletic ability cost you that trip to space camp. But chin up! Here’s a pair of British Knights!”
British Knights reached the apex of its popularity with the release of the Dymacel line in early 1992. The shoes were memorable because they had a cushion of green silicon embedded in the sole that was visible through diamond shaped windows. Dymacels were intended to compete with the Nike Air and Reebok Pump lines. Much like those shoes, the Dymacel “technology” provided no degree of increased functionality whatsoever. Despite this, they looked really cool and as an eight year-old kid you wanted a pair almost as much as an ice cream truck to jackknife in front of your house.
The executives pushing Dymacels even went so far as to pay professional athletes to endorse the line, a first for British Knights. But whereas Nike had Michael Jordan and Reebok had Shaquille O’Neal, British Knights had Derrick Coleman (one of the biggest flops in the history of the NBA draft) and Xavier McDaniel. Although Dymacels sold marginally well, the stature of these spokesmen correlated nicely with the later failure of the Dymacel line.
The decline of British Knights began in the mid-1990s when one of America’s foremost street gangs, the Crips, adopted the shoes as part of their wardrobe and the BK logo itself to indicate “Blood Killer.” As a result, schools and universities banned British Knights shoes and apparel in an attempt to curb gang violence amongst youths. In 1996, Jack Schwartz Shoes licensed the British Knights trademark to a German consortium that marketed the brand as a discount skate shoe sold in department stores. Once one of the top-five selling shoe brands in America, BKs had fallen from that lofty perch to become something akin to Keds.
In 2008, Jack Schwartz Shoes brought British Knights back by re-releasing their incredibly successful 1989 shoe line with such models as Leader, Ultra and Kings SL. The shoes are currently being sold at British Knights official website as a novelty shoe for collectors. So if you have $100 dollars, an old pair of Zoobas and a copy of “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em,” you too can kick it like it’s 1991 all over again.
Matt McDonough
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