Vans: Interview

Interview With Steve Van Doren.

So when did the Vans open the doors for business?
Well they were building the factory throughout 1965 and they had ‘Opening January!’ painted on the front but it wasn’t ready. This was the year of Maxwell Smart so they had ‘Would you believe February’ added to the sign, but it actually opened I believe on the first day of March, 1966. The factory, the office, and the retail store were all located at 704 East Broadway.
How did the custom making of shoes come about?
In the women’s area, a lady came in and said ‘that’s a nice pink but I really want a brighter pink’ and then she picked up the yellow shoe and said ‘that’s a nice yellow but it really is too light’. My dad thought to himself, for crying out loud I can’t afford to carry 5 different colours of pink. So he said lady, ‘why don’t you get a piece of fabric, whatever colour pink you want, bring it back and I’ll make a shoe for you’. So it was almost the first day that they started charging extra to do a custom pair of shoes.
When did the company realize it was developing a following with skateboarders?
Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach is where they started coming in and custom making shoes. In the very beginning we sold tons of the #44 blue deck shoes. Then the custom orders started coming in, and it started with just red and blue. We let that run for a few months then we came up with a stock shoe - navy blue, gold, navy blue and then brown, beige, brown. We would watch the customs and make brown/ beige/ brown if everybody ordered it as a custom. You had school colours, team colours, skaters and bmx kids who came in the late 70’s and those guys really liked the wild colours. There was no leather around until 76/77 when we finally came up with the Old School which had leather in the toe and heel because skaters were wearing hell out of them. Leather would last a long time, longer than anything else. The outsole never wore out, the side wall of the material would never wear out, they could get it down to where there was just a little bit of fabric but the sides would still be good.
Where did the slip-on idea come from?
The company my dad worked for before made a slip on; he interpreted into our own style, number #48. It was actually a slip on with a non-skid sole for boating. Our 40th anniversary is coming up next year and we are going to be bringing back style #45 which has a blue top and a blue sole designed for gripping.
The checkerboard slip-on is probably the most recognised of all the Vans styles how did they come about?
In the late seventies I was now out of high school and I noticed kids were taking the side profile off the shoe, where the white rubber was, and colouring it in checkerboard. So the first thing we did was start making rubber with the checks on it and eventually we made some canvas. Right at the same we had a PR lady named Betty Mitchell and Universal Studio’s asked Betty for some shoes. So she sent a whole lot of checkerboard shoes for the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, we had no idea.
They liked them so much they ended up on the album cover and then Sean Penn, or Jeff Spicoli in the movie, was hitting him self over the head with the shoes in the movie. It was magic because we sold millions of checkerboards. My Dad didn’t really want to sell shoes outside of California and now he had no choice as people everywhere wanted our shoes!
What does the future hold for Vans?
We’re never going to have air pockets like Air Jordans and stuff like that, so we have to get creative with the materials. The thing that hasn’t come back totally yet are all the fun, crazy things we did with prints. That’s an area that still has a long run for us.
It seems hard to get support for a new idea unless its retro inspired. Is it hard to come out with something fresh and original in sneakers?
I know Grant who is our head designer, has a really great idea but I’d have to kill you if I told you. He’s got something that’s not that easy, that he’s been working on for a year and a half. If he comes through with it, it’s really going to be cool. There’s also a new line called Syndicate. We just showed it at ASR, it was on a corner parking lot under a big army tent. It’s got 4 or five different styles, the Half Cab is one, the Old School is one. There is tattoo art on an Authentic, it looks great. These are packaged really cool and it’s a special brand just for our best, core skate shops.
Just to finish off, what shoe would you pick to sum up what Vans is all about?
The Checkerboard Slip-on. People buy them to go do their weddings
(History of Vans)