Vans shoes began March 16, 1966 in Anaheim, California when founder Paul Van Doren and three partners opened a 400-square-foot shop, where they manufactured their shoes in house and sold them directly to the public.  I vividly remember my first pair of Vans.  They were style 98 (now called “Classic Slip-Ons“) in black & white checkers just like Sean Penn’s from Fast Times at Ridgemont High , but my impetus for owning these shoes had nothing to do with that movie or the culture surrounding Vans.  I simply wanted them because everyone else in 3rd grade was wearing them.  My true fascination for Vans came a few years later around 1986, when I discovered Thrasher magazine; a precious, pre-Internet information source for skateboarding and music culture.  Most of the skaters in Thrasher ads and articles at this point were wearing style 38 hi-top Vans in various color schemes.

Growing up in Omaha, there were a few mom and pop skate shops that maintained a small inventory of Vans shoes.  The most notable being “Earl’s Bicycle Factory”, a metal connex shed in an industrial park transformed into an excellent BMX and skate shop.  Earl carried a healthy selection of Vans.  More importantly, he allowed his customers to place custom orders.  It was a cherished ritual when my mom would drive me to Earl’s to order new Vans.  I would stand in the shop and mull over cards of fabric, suede, and rubber foxing swatches before finalizing the design of my new shoes.  Since custom orders at Earl’s had a two month turnaround, my mother would sometimes allow me to place an order for two pairs!

I mostly ordered style 38 (now called “Sk8-Hi“) and style 36 (now called “Old Skools“), but I occasionally sported style 98, canvas two-tone lace-ups, and chukkas.  I skated in my Vans and sadly, only one pair of custom-made creations survive today (see below).

Today, Vans has succeeded in building a huge brand spanning a vast market, but their “classic” line is a far cry from the Vans I once wore and loved.  I trace the beginning of their demise to 1991, when Vans took their company public.  A few years later (1994), they began outsourcing the manufacture for specific shoe lines to South Korea.  By 1998, all domestic manufacturing shifted to China or South Korea.  The devil is always in the details but currently manufactured Vans would probably be acceptable to a consumer who never experienced American-made Vans.  Now I reminisce what I loved about American-made Vans:

• Early Vans came in a box that was simplistically styled bearing only the Vans logo.  It had a matte finish and was conveniently color coded blue (for men), green (for women), or orange (for children).
• When you opened a new box of vintage Vans, each shoe was wrapped in white tissue paper that would gently stick to the rubber foxing (friction tape) of the shoes.  The vulcanized crepe rubber waffle sole and foxing on vintage Vans felt denser and had a tacky texture.  It felt wonderful to the touch.  A perfect material and texture for gripping a skateboard deck, or floor surface.  New Vans soles and foxing feel more plastic than rubber.  They feel cheap.  Even worse, they crack and separate from the fabric prematurely.
• The suede used on vintage Vans had a texture (visible fibers, etc) and thickness one expects from leather.  The color would soften with wear and the fibers would pill in an attractive way.  This does not happen with the “leather” used on new Vans.  New Vans will never achieve the look of worn vintage Vans.
• The canvas on vintage Vans had the look and feel of cotton, with dyes that allowed the shoe to obtain a natural fade and patina from use.  The material on new Vans is lackluster in comparison.  I’m not sure if it’s because Vans now uses a synthetic in the weave, but like the suede they currently use, this fabric does not develop the proper fade vintage Vans once achieved.
• This probably sounds trivial, but Vintage Vans had a distinct smell of rubber and adhesive.  I loved this smell.  New Vans smell like new shoes… cheap new shoes.

According to an article about Vans on Fundinguniverse.com,  “by 1987, A third of the company’s business went to custom-designed shoes. In a time when almost all of the major sneaker makers had shifted production to South Korea, Vans clung to its tradition of domestic production, boasting order-to-delivery times of five days for its catalogue items, compared with an industry average of nine months.” This sounds like a great company that cares about its product and its customers.  What was wrong with that model?

In 1995, only 50% of clothing was made in the United States.  Today, that percentage has dropped to less than 5%.  This is very depressing for conscientious consumers who hate inferior quality and ill fitting items.  In future posts I will add more images of vintage Vans from my personal collection.