Ecko Clothing was founded in 1993 by Mark Ecko. A designer, graffit artist, and b-boy fan, the clothing line was inspired by the Hip Hop culture and its official elements. Starting out with a simple, comfortable clothing range, the brand was meant to be for the active participants of Hip Hop. Break dancers, graffitti artists, rappers, and more embraced the hip hop clothing line.

Since it's early days of popularity, Ecko clothing has virally spread into other Hip Hop lifestyles. The brand is now a full fashion range with 12 or more clothing lines under its umbrella. Ecko Unlimited and Ecko Red are the main clothing collections of the 12. Ecko Unlimited is for men. Ecko Red is for women. The two combined accounted for much of the Ecko empire's annual profits initially.

On October 27, 2009, Ecko clothing sold a major stake of the company to Iconix brand. According to various reports, the deal gave the company 51% of the Ecko brand, relieving Mark Ecko of most controls. Not by choice, some reports entail Ecko had bad spending habits and was forced to sell the brand stake for $63.5 mil to settle debt. He will still profit from the brand heavily (estimated 40mil yearly) but Iconix now has official decision making capabilities.