Paul Van Doren, the creator of the sneakers and the Vans brand, has died. In pop and rock we have seen all kinds of footwear parade, a dance where tennis is still king. Perhaps the Converse Chuck Taylor are the most popular because they were there from day one, comfort and attitude at a rocker price. Until 1986, when the Run DMC trio made their Adidas song and made them the official hip hop shoes. They were the first musical sponsorship of a sports brand. Adidas also stomped among the diyeis and electronic ravers to dance. Vans, on the other hand, was born with surfing and grew up with rock and punk.
Van Doren worked during the sixties at the Randy’s Rubber tennis factory, but had differences with the management and they let him go. Big mistake: he was the son of an inventor and a seamstress who lived in the surfing area of California. So he invented cloth tennis shoes for surfers, customized with the designs of his Hawaiian shirts. It did not take long for him to open a family factory in Los Angeles during the seventies with the brand’s footprint: the waffle, the rubber sole with the hexagon and diamond pattern that adheres to the skateboard and the asphalt, something that skaters They needed for slip resistant. The waffle also fit perfectly on the teeth of the BMX bikes pedals and gripped the rims to make flatland. Thus came the Vans surf, skate and BMX sports teams.
Paul Van Doren invented tennis shoes for surfers, with designs
of their Hawaiian shirts
And what music did the practitioners of these sports listen to? Surf, punk, metal, stoner and hardcore. The brand emerged among the musical groups integrated into those sports tribes that arrived with the Vans on, such as Black Flag, Minor Threat, Agent Orange, Circle Jerks and Fu Manchu. If in England the punk footwear was Dr. Martens worker boots, in the United States the Vans had the claw and the stamina to put it on.
The brand became so musical that in 1995 it began sponsoring Kevin Lyman’s Vans Warped Tour, a punk and alternative rock festival that toured every summer, until Lyman retired in 2018. Since the seventies, Vans have maintained the cool among the kids in the process of rebellion – which is not the case with other brands of old men– and various rock and hip hop groups have dedicated songs to their inseparable peers: The Suicide Machines, The Pack, Travis Mills and Arrested Youth, among others. Vans are the tennis of urban action, sports and music. The red tennis shoes that dance alone. For a reason they are the tennis of my life, although today I can only use them on the bicycle. With age one exchanges cool for comfort. The back kills me if I use them to walk Off The Wall.
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