Leather jacket from the Skate Witch skate video, 1986
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: In 1986, Danny Plotnick, now the Director of Film Studies at the University of San Francisco, shot the cult classic skate video “Skate Witches” while a student at the University of Michigan. The 2-minute short, shot on Super 8 film, feature the three skate witches Dana Forrester, Jenny Parker and Karen Kibler also students at U of M. Plotnick’s direction and the Skate Witches attitudes captured the raw intensity of the growing punk/alt scene of the late 1980s. It also portrays the feelings of discontent that woman skaters often harbored in the very male dominated sport of the 1980s. While women were definitely skating in the mid to late 1980s, most were getting hassled by their male counterparts, making it difficult to find a place in the skate park or even on the streets, women felt safe to skate.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The video was born from the donor, Dana Forrester’s frustration with the attitudes of male skateboarders toward female skateboarders at the time. The video turns the tables on ‘the boys’ and has the female skaters being brash and aggressive, pushing the boys off their skateboards and skating off with the boards, leaving the boys lying on the street. It is a 2-minute snapshot of the times seen through fashion, music and skateboarding showing real people living an alt lifestyle not what the ‘Hollywood’ version of a punk was. The women in the video who portray the gang of Skate Witches wear their own clothing, have their own punk hairstyles and the rats in the video are also their own. And who doesn’t like a good pet rat! The jacket being donated belonged to Dana Forrester, the Skate Witch who wore it in the video. Karen Kibler used masking tape and white acrylic paint to make the iconic jacket using the Suicidal Tendencies logo as inspiration.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The video has had a lasting impact on young and older skaters alike who discovered the 1986 classic on YouTube. The short speaks to female skaters today, showing the struggles of past generations and the roads they paved for future generations. See the 2-minute clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az-sD2zsePg
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Sport and Leisure
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2025.0113.01
label: catalog number
content: 2025.0113.01
label: accession number
content: 2025.0113
objectType: label: Object Name
content: jacket
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: leather (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paint (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (buckle material)
label: Physical Description
content: textile, satin (lining material)
label: Measurements
content: overall, flat: 28 1/2 in x 38 in; 72.39 cm x 96.52 cm