The skaters

In 1976, skateboarders and skaters began wearing Vans shoes and asked to have different colors combined on them. In march 19, 1976, Vans came out with the first red and blue vans authentic shoe. This shoe was designed by two professional skaters, Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta. That craze spread across the nation when Jeff Spicoli, a California surfer dude in the hit movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", wore a pair of Vans checkerboard slip ons

STACY AND TONY!!

Vans first shoe store

The day the Vans Shoe store was open they

only had 12 costumers they only picked out

the style and color they wanted. They didn't have any shoes in stock so Paul and Gordy asked the customers to come back in the afternoon to pick up their shoes. They rushed back to the factory and made the shoes. When the customers returned in the afternoon to pick up their shoes, they needed change for their purchases. Paul and Gordy didn't think about how they where going to get change, So, they just gave them the shoes and asked them to come back the next day to pay for them. All 12 customers showed up the following day to pay for their shoes.

The first Vans old skool shoes had a diamond pattern in the sole across the entire bottom of the shoe.

old school vans

Vans shoes was founded by Paul Van Doren with a simple idea to make shoes and sell them directly to the public. Paul moved west to Southern California with his partners, Jim Van Doren, Gordy Lee and Serge D'Elia. The first day of business was March 15, 1966, when the first Vans shoe store opened in Anaheim, California. They offered three styles of vans shoes on that first day, but had only made display shoes. The racks on the wall were stacked with empty boxes to help make it look like a shoe store.