VANS AND PROPER - NAUTICAL... BUT NICE!

As recently as a year or two ago, you could go nuts with colour or the materials and story if you were doing a collab. Given the market is getting more conservative every day, how do you create a killer shoe without overblowing the final result?
Right now I think the strongest point is in the choice of materials as a means to conveying a particular concept. Bright colours haven’t been the dominant trend lately despite what you see in stores, so people are looking at the textures of different and unique materials to differentiate the product. I know that was one of our primary considerations when working on this last set of Vans. There’s been stuff done with countless colours, embosses, prints, even lasers but I still think the possibilities are endless.

I noticed a few astute details you managed to work in the shoes. The first of which is a nice thick innersole which is something I’ve always thought would make Vans a lot more comfortable.
The new drop-in footbed was something we definitely wanted to use. I know that Vans is switching over to that form of construction in their Vault line and believe they’ve been using that thicker inner sole in the Syndicate line for some time now. If you can retain the classic looks of something but make it more comfortable at the same time, it’s definitely a win-win situation. We even chose to push it a little further by having the entire lining of the shoe constructed from pig skin leather.