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Skate Shoes

Old Skool

Vans shoes history

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Paul Van Doren started the Vans Shoes company with the idea to make the shoes directly and sell to the public directly also. So Paul moved to southern California with partners, Serge D'Elia, Jim Van Doren, and Gordy Lee. They opened their first store on March 15, 1966, in Anaheim, California. They had only three different styles made, but they had only made display models. The shelves in their store actually just had empty shoe boxes on them to seem like a shoe store. That day 12 customers bought shoes from them, but since there was no change, they were asked to come back later and pay for the shoes, all 12 customers did. The Era in red and blue vans the first vans authentic shoe and was designed by two professional skaters, Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta. Vans shoes became very popular when Jeff Spicoli, a California surfer character wore a pair of checkerboard slip ons in the movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".
The Vans collection is now over 60 styles from vans classic shoes and slip-ons to skateboard shoes, snowboard boots and sandals. Vans is now distributed in over 190 company owned retail stores and outlets as well as through a worldwide network of independent shoe stores and sporting goods stores.