Engineered Garments Go Deceptively Deep With Vans Slip-On Storytelling
It's a truth sneakerspherically acknowledged that are crazy for asymmetrical-coloured Among other outings, the Japanese brand in 2016, the and , and the The reason for label founder Daiki Suzuki's predilection comes from his time as a young skater in Aomori Prefecture, when he and his buddies would swap single Vans – ending up with myriad disparate pairs. This month, Engineered Garments are again hitting the Slip-On with inconsistent colours – but the storytelling behind this palette goes even deeper than Suzuki's childhood.
If you check out Engineered Garments' previous asymmetrical Vans you'll notice they mainly come in muted tones – even this particular two-pack includes a navy-and-black colourway. But there's also a bright red and beaming blue about to drop, and the choice is anything but random, instead linking to the life of 70s skater Tony Alva.
is woven as tight as a boxer's braids. Aside from being one of the skaters whose phrase 'off the wall' was absorbed into Vans founder Paul Van Doeren's vernacular (ending up as the brand's tagline), he's also indirectly responsible for the mismatched appearance of the very first , which dropped in a two-tone red and blue.
How so? When skating, Alva would thrash his left shoe so hard it'd tear up well before the right one. When the sneak was all but tatters, he'd walk into a store and grab whichever colourway happened to be available in his size – and often, that colour wouldn't match what was on his feet. Red pairs and blue pairs were his go-tos... and lore was born.
Despite their variations in energy, both colourways in the new Engineered Garments x Vans Slip-On pack rock an earthy gum outsole and white sidewalls. The duo are due to drop August 28 via , and will set you back $100 each.
Vans have been very busy this month! Peep the news on their colabs with , , and even