Whether you’re a long-time Vans shoe wearer or just bought your first pair yesterday, whether you destroy each pair in a month from skateboarding or just wear them for fashion you will love the story behind this American icon.

The Vans shoe has been the symbol of skateboarding and action sports freedom for years and now it’s all come together in 208 pages and 365 colored photos inside a hard cover coffee-table book, Vans Off the Wall: Stories of Sole From Vans Originals, released June 1.

The book highlights everything about the brand from its inception in 1966 with its custom made shoes to the development of the Warped Tour.  The stories touch the 'sole' of anyone who has worn their shoes over the years or spent a warm summer day partying with their favorite punk bands and watching their action sport heroes at the sports and music festival.

Vans VP of Marketing Doug Paladini recently said in an interview with TW Business, “So we tried to do something a little bit out of the ordinary for the book. What the Vans book did is create a series of vignettes that collectively tell the story of who Vans is. We are music, we are art, we are pop culture, we are fashion, in addition to surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding, bmx and motocross - the other things that you would obviously associate us with.

By telling twenty some odd different stories across the board I think in reading the 208 pages you get a good collective feel for who we are. The book jumps around from Jeff Rowley, to the Warp Tour to custom shoes, to Joel Tudor to the Triple Crown…”

The books website is also interesting to anyone looking to get a deeper understanding of the brand with video interviews from skateboarding legend Steve Caballero and montages of the shoe being made in its original factory.

The book is available to buy online or at Van’s retailers for $24.95 USD.



www.ExplorerGirls.com / Courtney Crow

Images: Vans and Ian Browne (flikr)