VANS AND PROPER - NAUTICAL... BUT NICE!

Boat shoes or whatever you want to call them – from Rockport to Lactose to Sperry – everyone’s having a crack at them. Are you seeing kids coming in the store and wearing them more and more?
Yeah, it seems like it has taken off, especially here in the States, I think there’s definitely an upswing in some of those styles that you mentioned. The reason why it we chose to work with the Chukka del Barco, aside from the classic styling, is that Vans was originally a canvas deck-shoe company. They have styles like the 45LX, 46LX... shoes that have that siped outsole on it. Before they caught on with the skate market they were still labelled as Van Dorens, and were sold as canvas deck shoes. The shoes have fully siped outsoles and feature true 360 degree lacing for a true fit.

I noticed some nautical flags that obviously call out your local area.
Yeah. Definitely. Long Beach is a port city. We have waterfront properties throughout the city with berths for boats and we’ve got the port of Long Beach right there also. There’s countless newspaper tales of debauchery and things that would go on when sailors would come into Long Beach. The nautical flags on the side aren’t just arbitrarily chosen, it’s actually the nautical flag for Lima, Bravo, Charlie which spells LBC, so it’s something that represents both the city and Proper. We also wanted to use traditional materials that we associated with an ocean lifestyle, including cotton that’s used in polo shirts. That material is consistent on all three models including the simplified Authentic LX that was stripped down to an almost one piece construction.