Time to vote for the Vans that move you

Votes may now be cast -- through May 3 -- in the Vans Custom Culture high school arts competition that had students around the country put their best artistic foot forward by customizing one of the skate brand's signature silhouettes.

The 10 finalists from each region -- California, Northwest, Southwest, Northeast and Southeast -- can be viewed at the competition's website, where members of the general public can vote for one school's entry per region.

After voting closes May 3, the school receiving the most votes in each region will be flown to Southern California for a final event at the Long Beach Museum of Art. The grand prize winner will earn a $50,000 donation to their school's art program and the opportunity to see one of their designs hit retail, with each runner up receiving a $4,000 donation to their school program.

New this year is a partnership with shoe retailer Journeys, which will award a separate $5,000 prize for the pair of shoes that best embodies the theme of "local flavor," with $1,000 to each of the four runners up in that category.

It's the third year of the program for the VF Corp.-owned action sports brand, which awarded top honors to Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, N.Y., in 2011 and Rio Rancho High School of Rio Rancho, N.M., in 2010. 

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 -- Adam Tschorn

Photo: A shoe design by 2011 winner Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, N.Y. Credit: Vans

Vans, Shortomatic custom board short program is officially live

 
Back in May, when we first told you about Vans tapping Santa Monica-based Shortomatic.com to launch its custom board short program, the kinks were still being worked out and the site hadn't officially launched yet.

Today comes word that the Vans Powered by Shortomatic program is officially live, and it can be accessed through the www.vans.com/customboardshorts url, where customers can build their custom boardies using 16 colors, six customizable patterns and four vintage prints plus a rotating limited-edition artist print (the debut featured artist is Neil Blender).  

Handmade in Santa Monica, the shorts start at $99, and have a turnaround time of just two weeks from order to shipping. 

Which means if you order  today, your custom shorts will still see a long stretch of summer. 

-- Adam Tschorn

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Come meet Hello Kitty and check out her new Vans collaboration

 

The adorable and quite fashionable character Hello Kitty has yet another collaboration and this time she’s doing the street wear thing. Hello Kitty’s image is splashed all over Vans slip-ons and Old School lace up sneakers and the result is, as one would guess, pretty darn cute. 

To kick off the canvas shoe collab, Hello Kitty will be making an in-person appearance at the Vans store in Culver City on Saturday. Everyone who attends will receive a photo with Kitty and some promo items surrounding the project. The event is open to the public, but space is limited to the store’s capacity.

The idea of Hello Kitty on a skateboard is about all the adorable I can handle, but die-hard fans will no doubt have a field day at this in-store event.

-- Melissa Magsaysay

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Photos, from  top: Hello Kitty personal appearance flier; sneakers from the Hello Kitty and Vans collaboration. Credit: Hello Kitty

Quiksilver's custom boardshort program taps brand heritage, technical expertise

Less than two days after I posted about Vans' new custom boardshort program through Shortomatic.com, the folks at boardsport behemoth Quiksilver fired off an email to let me know that they'd launched a similar program just a month and a half earlier.

And, at first glance, it looks stunningly similar.

Vans taps Shortomatic.com to launch its Era custom boardshort [Updated]

Last May, when I first saw what the folks at Santa Monica-based Anymatic LLC had launched -- an easy, quick and relatively inexpensive ($99) way to create a pair of custom-printed boardshorts from user-uploaded art (including personal photographs) that would be cut and sewn right here in the Los Angeles area, one of my first thoughts was how long it would be before one of the giant action sports brands would come calling.

It turns out not long at all.

Barely a year after rolling out Shortomatic.com, the company is set to debut a partnership with Cypress-based Vans, which has long offered customers the opportunity to design their own shoes. Dubbed Vans The Era Custom Boardshort powered by Shortomatic.com the website, which is expected to go live shortly*, pairs the technology and processes created by Anymatic with the resources and design archives of the VF Corp.-owned skate brand -– including its familiar iconic checkerboard pattern, to allow customers to design their own surf trunks.

Put the best feet forward: Voting now open in Vans' nationwide high school design contest

The Vans Custom Culture high school arts program moved into an important phase at 9 p.m. PDT last night, when the top 50 semifinalists in a custom-shoe design competition (composed of art students from 10 high schools in each of five regions across the country), were posted online.

Until May 2, the general public will be able to view -- and vote for -- their favorite design in each region (Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, Southwest and California). Representatives of the winning team from each region will participate in a final exhibit in June in New York City, with the winning team receiving a $50,000 donation to their high school's arts education program -- and the chance to see their shoe designs hit retail sometime in 2012.

It's the second year of the program for the VF Corp.-owned action sports brand, which last year gave top honors to the arts students of Rio Rancho High School of Rio Rancho, N.M. 

The five California semifinalists vying for the 2011 honor are: Cathedral Catholic High School (San Diego), Cathedral City High School (Cathedral City), Corona Del Mar High School (Corona Del Mar), Da Vinci Schools (Hawthorne), Diamond Bar High School (Diamond Bar), Dos Pueblos High School (Goleta), Heritage High School (Menifee), Minarets High School (O'Neals) Orange High School (Orange) and Sacramento New Tech High School (Sacramento). 

Votes can be cast -- and results can be checked -- until 8:59 p.m. PDT on Monday, May 2, at vans.com/customculture -- which is also where you'll find the complete list of the 50 semifinalist high schools.

-- Adam Tschorn

Photos: Vans shoes customized by art students at San Diego's Cathedral Catholic High School (far left) and Orange High School (in Orange, Calif., far right) are among the 50 semifinalists vying for a $50,000 arts program donation and a chance to see their design hit retail in 2012. Credit: Vans.

Wild Pair: Claw Money x Vans summer collaboration

 

New York-based graffiti artist turned fashion designer Claw Money has teamed up with Vans to do a line of shoes and accessories for their girl’s line.

The shoes (a high-top and low-top pair), socks and tank tops just hit stores and surprisingly aren't scrawled with the '80s-inspired graffiti and bright colors the artist uses in her own collection, but rather dark, animal-print pieces informed by Southern California’s sun-bleached surfers and thriving punk scene.

The collection is festooned in a faded animal print and black canvas, so the shoes aren’t loud and the tank tops are actually really wearable.

The Claw Money x Vans Girls line is in stores and at vans.com now and ranges from $8 for socks to $70 for the high-top “Hadley” sneaker

-- Melissa Magsaysay

Photos: (Top) Claw Money x Vans Girls "Hadley" high top sneaker; (Bottom) Claw Money x Vans Girls tank top and socks.  Credit: Vans

Vans and Stussy team up to make a sleek saddle shoe

Vans has done some super collaborations -- with Marc Jacobs, Luella, the Simpsons and Iron Maiden to name a few.  The most recent pairing is a shoe designed with another SoCal-based label, Stussy  Girls, that was kicked off with a party Tuesday night at a loft space on La Brea Avenue.

The space was transformed to look and feel like a 1940s-style speakeasy, which is fitting since the shoe that’s resulted from this project is a slim, lace-up saddle shoe called the "Bailie." It comes in black and brown and is the first nonsneaker-type girl's shoe Vans has done in a collaboration.

Guests got a glimpse of the shoes, which were displayed like art around the loft. They then made their way to the digital photo booth, where they could dress up in bowler hats, fake handlebar mustaches and feather boas to get their picture snapped and then screened on the wall for all to see.

The Stussy Girls collaboration is the start of several fun, street-tough lines to come. Vans Girls has also done a line with street artist Claw Money. Get ready for splashy graffiti-style graphics on sneakers.

The Vans Girls x Stussy Girls “Bailie” shoe is $65 at www.vans.com and Stussy locations.

-- Melissa Magsaysay

Photo: The "Bailie" in brown, left; the Vans x Stussy Girls launch party, right. Credit: Melissa Magsaysay / Los Angeles Times

Limited-edition Vans mark Dodgers' home opener

To mark the Dodgers' home opener (against the Arizona Diamondbacks at 1:10 p.m. Tuesday), Vans has released an extremely limited number of three different Dodger-themed shoes to local Vans Vault accounts. Proper in Long Beach is selling just 12 pair of the 106 Vulcanized LX (above left),  Conveyor at Fred Segal in Santa Monica has a dozen pair of the Sk-8 Hi LX (above right) up for grabs, and Undefeated in Silver Lake has 12 pair of the Old Skool LX (not pictured), for which raffle tickets (just for the right to purchase the shoes, mind you) will be handed out at the store at 1 p.m. today, with winners chosen during the seventh-inning stretch.

Each set includes a pair of Vans and matching limited-edition Majestic authentic jersey, with prices being set by each retailer. The Vans Vault X MLB 15-team collection launched on April 3 with the Boston Red Sox release on April 3 and included two styles of Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim shoes that were released on April 5.

-- Adam Tschorn

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Photo: The limited-edition Vans Vault X MLB Opening Day collection includes just 12 pair of Dodgers 106 Vulcanized LX (top left) and a dozen pair of Sk8-Hi LX (above right) released today to mark the Dodgers' home opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Credit: Vans

Retailers and fashion brands do their part to help Haiti

While shopping and material possessions are the furthest thing from anyone's mind amid the horrific aftermath of Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti, several brands and retailers are mobilizing their resources to help the relief efforts.  Here is a list of companies getting involved and how you too can help.