50 years of Vans: How the skate shoe became a fashion icon
Explore 50 years of Vans’ skate shoe legacy, from the iconic Era to today’s fashion revival as luxury designers embrace the low-profile silhouette.
(Art: CNA/Jasper Loh; photos: Instagram/vans)
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When Louis Vuitton men’s creative director Pharrell Williams posted now-deleted photos and a video of a new sneaker ahead of the house’s Spring/Summer 2027 show in Paris, it looked strangely familiar.
Called the Combi, the low-profile shoe had a bright red crocodile leather upper, thick laces and a vulcanised rubber sole – details that immediately drew comparisons to one of skateboarding’s most recognisable shoes: the Vans Authentic.
The resemblance was apparently hard to ignore even for Vans itself, which commented “ohhhh bet” (a slang for “okay” or “sure”) on his post before sharing its own promotional shot of the red Authentic, captioned with a sly nod to an old Pharrell-produced hip-hop track about copycats.
Louis Vuitton is hardly the first luxury house to borrow from skateboarding culture. In the past year alone, Prada released its own take on the classic skate silhouette, Bottega Veneta reworked it in Intrecciato-woven leather for its Sawyer shoe, and Phoebe Philo put out a plimsoll version under her own label – turning a shoe once associated with half-pipes and youth subcultures into the footwear du jour.
Despite its recent runway spotlight, the low-slung shoe has been around for decades – and its history is deeply intertwined with Vans and the evolution of skateboarding itself.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Vans Skateboarding, with the brand reintroducing the Skate Era as a centrepiece.
The timing is particularly fitting. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Vans Skateboarding, with the brand reintroducing the Skate Era as a centrepiece of its 2026 collection and positioning it as the return of “the world’s first skate shoe”.
So how did a shoe designed for skateboarders become one of fashion’s most enduring – and now most coveted – silhouettes?
WORLD’S FIRST SKATE SHOE
When the Van Doren Rubber Company opened its first store in Anaheim, California in 1966, its debut style, the #44, was a simple canvas deck shoe that would later become known as the Authentic.
It wasn’t designed specifically for skateboarding, but local skaters soon noticed that its thick rubber sole offered the kind of grip they needed. By the early 1970s, Vans had become a familiar sight among skaters in the Santa Monica and Venice areas.
As skateboarding evolved, so did the demands on the shoes. Skaters were riding harder and attempting more ambitious tricks, and the basic deck shoe wasn’t quite enough. In 1976, Vans turned to two of the era’s most influential skateboarders, Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta, to help develop something specifically for their sport.
The result was the Style #95, later renamed the Era – widely recognised as the world’s first skateboarding shoe. Based on the Authentic, it featured a padded ankle collar for additional comfort and support, along with reinforced construction to withstand the demands of skating.
The other key feature was Vans’ now-iconic waffle-shaped outsole. Made using a vulcanisation process that bonds the rubber outsole to the shoe, it provided the “sticky” grip that skaters prized on their boards.
There were, of course, other canvas-and-rubber shoes around before the Era. Brands such as Keds, Converse and Sperry had already produced similar low-profile styles, some predating even the Authentic. What set Vans apart was its direct engagement with skateboarders. Rather than simply becoming popular among them, the Era was developed with their input and specifically for their needs. As Peralta recalled in the book Made For Skate: “Vans was the first company to recognise us as skateboarders and treat us seriously.”
The Era would go on to become the foundation for Vans’ skate footwear, influencing subsequent core styles including the Old Skool and Sk8-Hi. This year, the brand marked the 50th anniversary of the silhouette with the Skate Era, bringing back the iconic style and reuniting it with Alva, the skater who helped create it.
HOW IT’S EVOLVED
As skateboarding grew from a Southern California pastime into a youth subculture in the late 1970s and 1980s, Vans became part of its visual language. The shoes were practical, but they also looked the part: simple, low-profile and easy to wear with the loose jeans, shorts and graphic T-shirts that came to define skate style.
As skateboarding intersected with punk, alternative music and street culture, Vans followed, appearing on musicians, artists and other figures who had never stepped on a board themselves. The shoes became a signifier for a particular kind of irreverence – casual, youthful and deliberately unconcerned with mainstream fashion.
By the 1980s, Vans had also become closely associated with the emerging skateboarding film and video culture. Perhaps most famously, the brand’s Slip-On gained a starring role in Fast Times At Ridgemont High after Sean Penn’s Jeff Spicoli wore a checkered pair.
The following decades saw skate shoes move further into mainstream culture. Kurt Cobain was frequently photographed in the suede version of Converse’s One Star, while the Chuck Taylor became a fixture of 90s alternative style, worn by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Winona Ryder and Drew Barrymore.
By the 2000s, the same unpretentious canvas-and-rubber aesthetic was embraced by hip-hop and street culture. Chuck Taylors were regularly spotted on artists including NWA and Snoop Dogg, while Vans found fans among the likes of A$AP Rocky and Frank Ocean in the 2010s.
Fashion, meanwhile, was taking notice. Designers began reworking these humble silhouettes, with collaborations like the Comme des Garcons Play x Converse and Vans x Takashi Murakami giving them a new fashion currency.
MORE SLEEK, LESS SK8TERBOI
The current skate shoe resurgence is part of a broader shift towards slimmer, more understated sneakers. After years of chunky soles and heavily engineered silhouettes dominating the market, low-profile shoes offer a quieter alternative, and the skate shoe fits neatly into that mood.
The new versions are also a far cry from the scuffed canvas pairs associated with the skate park. Designers have been playing with the proportions, materials and finishes of familiar deck-shoe shapes, from supple leather to woven uppers, giving them a more polished feel while retaining their flat, unfussy profile.
Celebrities, too, are leaning on the casual, slightly rebellious edge of skate shoes to offset more polished or minimalist outfits. K-pop idol The8 of Seventeen, for instance, demonstrates the appeal of a tonal approach, pairing varying shades of grey – from an oversized cardigan to slouchy denim – with understated grey Chucks.
Singer Olivia Rodrigo, meanwhile, captures the shoe’s versatility with a playful, Y2K-inspired look, pairing a soft pink graphic tee and plaid skirt with crisp white trainers.
What began as a practical fix for Southern California skaters in need of better grip has, five decades on, become one of fashion’s most beloved silhouettes – proof that the shoes built for the half-pipe were sturdy enough, in more ways than one, to go the distance.
Source: CNA/yy
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