The
ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 has provided the functionality to add a default
option label for DropDownList control. For adding a default
option label, provide the default label as the first argument of the
DropDownList helper method. This will render the default option label element with its value attribute equal to an empty string, but with its inner text as the value that you provide.
Normal
0
false
false
false
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
<%=Html.DropDownList("--Select Customer--","Customer") %>
Read the complete post at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ShijuVBlog/~3/415520012/default-option-label-for-dropdownlist-in-asp-net-mvc-preview-5.aspx