For a while it seemed like skateboard fashion-no matter how progressive-was possessed by an unshakeable silliness. When ravers and rollerbladers appropriated the fat pants style, skateboarding was primed for an era of clean simple attire. Pants could be worn without a belt, t-shirts had dropped from XXXL to L and floor-grazing wallet chains had all but disappeared. Then came props.

Props were tongues cut out of an old pair of sneakers and stuffed under the tongue of a new pair so that the whole shoe took on a more rotund appearance. I can’t say who in my group of friends-or in the skateboard community at large-was responsible for the invention, but I do remember the first time I gave props a go. I had just bought a brand new pair of tan Duffs’ Strombolies.“Dude,” my friend Brandon said, looking at my new shoes, “those shoes are dope, but they’d be twice as fuckin’ dope with some props.”

“Props? I don’t know, you think so?”

“Those Duffs were fuckin’ made for props.”

I gave Brandon a quizzical glare. I didn’t really like the idea of stuffing my new shoes, but Brandon was sort of the elder in our group of friends. Plus he got a box of boards from Planet Earth once in the early nineties, which afforded him a sliver of local celebrity.

“Dude, they’re screaming out for some props,” he urged.

“I don’t know.”

“Here,” Brandon said, “I’ll show you. Give me one of them”

I took off a Strombolie and passed it to him. He put it on the table-I think we were at Wendy’s-and then took off one of his shoes. Reaching into it, he pulled out a prop. Brandon’s prop was highly advanced. It was actually two tongues taped together with athletic tape. There was a patch of grip tape across the top.

“What’s the grip tape for?”

“Fuckin’ keeps the props from sliding all around in your shoe.”

Brandon set the prop on the table and went about loosening the laces on my shoe. Then he expertly slid the prop into the Strombolie and handed it back to me.

“Hold onto the prop with your thumb when you put it on so it doesn’t slip.”

I slipped my foot into the modified shoe, following his instructions, and stood up. Damn, I remember thinking.

“See that shit?” Brandon howled.

“Yeah, it looks pretty cool.” My ankle suddenly looked very svelte sticking out of what resembled a giant cinnamon roll.

“Fuck yeah it does. Now give me that shit back.”

Props quickly became unnecessary as skate shoe companies began fortifying their shoes with huge pillowed tongues that had internal side straps anchoring them to the sole of the shoe. Most skate shoes in and around 1996 wouldn’t have looked strange at all if worn with a lunar suit. The puff factor has subsided somewhat over the years-it hit its crescendo with Osiris’ D3, a shoe so husky and absurd it has to be seen to be believed-and I am happy to report that the Duff’s Gambler has practically no tongue bulk. Duffs actually left the shoe market during the years of bloat. I don’t know if they were regrouping, or if they retreated into a hollowed out mountain to design a set of props with the ability to conform to any foot using nanotechnology, but Duffs are back.

Their new line has this weird squiggle on the sides. It kind of looks like a poor man’s Nike swoosh; in the same vein as the Payless shelltoes that have four stripes instead of the Adidas-owned three. The squiggle is actually very fetching, and the Gamblers are probably the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned. Right out of the box they felt like hand-me-down slippers your grandpa might give you when he gets a new pair. The suede didn’t hold up very well to the rigors of my sweet ollies, and the green dye consistently streaked my grip tape, but I don’t really care. Did I mention they feel like slippers.