MORNING-12
national footprint.>
five decades, the company has evolved from a modest deck shoemaker to
become a signifier of street culture, art, and even fashion.>
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS (CBSN; CBS News Correspondent): Good morning. That movie vaulted Vans from a California brand to a company with a national footprint. This year Vans has been celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. Over five decades, the company has evolved from a modest deck shoemaker to become a signifier of street culture, art, and even fashion.
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VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Each day skateboarders gather to do alleys, rail slides, and other tricks at the Huntington Beach, California, park built by a sneaker company. It`s skaters like this who put the sneakers on the map almost five decades ago.
DOUG PALLADINI (Vans CEO): If you grew up in that world then you know what Vans is and-- and it`s been a part of my life from a very, very young age.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: This year Vans` CEO Doug Palladini released a fiftieth anniversary edition of the book Vans: Off the Wall.
How fast did they catch on?
DOUG PALLADINI: The first shoe the authentic for-- for people who know it, it`s basically a traditional deck shoe and there`s a lot of brands that make a similar shoe. It wasn`t really until we were found by skateboarders in the early seventies that we found our true calling.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: It started in 1966 as the Van Doren Rubber Company. Paul Van Doren and his brother, Jim, shoemakers from Massachusetts, had just set up shop in Anaheim.
Is it a legend or is it a true story that the first customers that came to Vans chose their shoe and then they were made that very day and they came back to pick them up later on? They were like custom made?
DOUG PALLADINI: Yeah, true stories. We had a little store on the front and people would come in and they would look at the pink shoe in the box and say, well, I like this pink but I wish it was a little darker. And he said, okay, you show me what color you want, and I will make you that shoe.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: As told in the 2002 documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys, some of those people ended up being skateboarding pioneers from the West Los Angeles area known as Dogtown.
MAN: We had these shirts. We had Levi`s and we had dark blue Vans and that was our uniform and everybody complied to that.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: The shoes allowed them to feel the board, while the vulcanized rubber and waffle pattern soles helped them stay on board.
DOUG PALLADINI: The error we were talking about was the first shoe that was ever made for the act of skateboarding, specifically. So they took the authentic that they have been wearing and they said, hey, can you just reinforce some different parts with the fabric? Can you put some just a little bit of padding in the heel here for us? And then they were off and running.
(Excerpt from Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: But even with the notoriety of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the company fell on hard times and was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1984. In the aftermath, the company put its best foot forward, focusing on its five main silhouettes and its core brand.
So the clarity of who Vans is, what is that?
DOUG PALLADINI: Vans is really the-- the global icon of creative expression in youth culture. Our-- our whole thing is about individuals who want to express themselves creatively. We have what we call our four cultural pillars of art, music, action sports, and street culture. And at the center of all those subcultures is creative expression.
(Dinosaur Jr. performing)
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: This summer we watched the band Dinosaur Junior shoot their new video "Goin down" at House of Vans in Brooklyn. It`s one of a number of their locations around the world that celebrate street culture.
ATIBA JEFFERSON: When I was a kid, I mean even the shoes that I have on you would special order and that`s the greatest thing about Vans. It was-- you could special order any color.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: The video`s director, Atiba Jefferson, who started skating in 1989, says the company sticks to its roots even when its kicks aren`t in style.
ATIBA JEFFERSON: It`s very fashion forward now. It`s-- it`s crazy. I mean the skate high I see on (INDISTINCT) models, you know? So-- and I`m seeing tons of NBA basketball players in the classics. So, you know, it`s-- it`s a classic timeless shoe.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: After fifty years, Vans has grown up and more often are worn by people getting dressed up.
DOUG PALLADINI: You may go back and refresh your skate highs that-- that-- that-- where the hole-- just in them just got too big and-- and your significant others said you can`t wear those anymore, or you may have got a job and you need the all black to the floor ones.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Yeah.
DOUG PALLADINI: Or you want something more dressy for your prom and you get the leather one. That`s all good to us.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Or you can wear the checkered slip-ons to a state dinner at the White House.
DOUG PALLADINI: We just had Frank Ocean wear these. He went to dinner--
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Right.
DOUG PALLADINI: --he took his mom to dinner with President Obama and he wore these with his suit. And that was just-- that was so cool.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: In a sneaker market worth seventeen billion dollars, it helps to stand out in a crowd.
How do you expect to grow the company over the next three to five years?
DOUG PALLADINI: For a long time Vans was not only a U.S. brand, it was a California brand. It`s really been only in the past fifteen years that we`ve become a truly global brand. I just got back from Seoul, South Korea, Vans everywhere. I was in Beijing, Vans everywhere. Santiago, Vans everywhere. It`s really-- that-- that`s the way the business is growing is that geographic expansion.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: But the company that once sold sneakers in front of its southern California factory now makes their shoes overseas.
DOUG PALLADINI: Some of what`s happening in manufacturing today and you`ve seen this with other brands as well, is coming back to our shore and we`re hopeful that we`ll be able to take part in that, so more on that coming soon.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: It`s an economic issue the incoming president is already focusing on.
What would it take to bring the manufacturing back here to the?
DOUG PALLADINI: Well, we live off of our product being accessible to everybody, right? The average price of a pair of Vans is probably still in the sixty-dollar range today.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: So if we-- if-- if you had to make them here, you`d be paying a hundred and twenty dollars for a pair of shoes?
DOUG PALLADINI: And again, that`s not acceptable to us. You know, we-- we need to figure out how to do both.
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: That`s because Palladini wants people in his sneakers for the next fifty years.
DOUG PALLADINI: It`s the things that really you remember in life. You had your first kiss in this pair. The best concert you ever went to. The first trick you landed on your skateboard. Those are the things that-- that you hearken back to every time you put your Vans on and that`s a beautiful thing.
(End VT)
VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Over the decades Vans has involved into a unisex brand. They`ve actually given up trying to predict if a sneaker will be popular for men or women. So, Anthony and Alex, you can both rock the Vans on set if you want.
ALEX WAGNER: Vlad Duthiers, thanks. You know, I just want America to know that I recently purchased a pair of Vans that have pepperoni pizza slice design all over them.
ANTHONY MASON: Oh, I like that idea.
ALEX WAGNER: They`re the most popular piece of wear.
ANTHONY MASON: It is not easy being fashionable for fifty years.
ALEX WAGNER: It is not easy, but Vans make it-- makes it just a little bit easier. It is the very thing that drew so many to the movies in the forties and fifties to be swept away by song. Original movie musicals dominated the Box Office in the middle of the last century and then largely faded to black. But could one of the year`s most buzz-worthy films revive an entire genre? You are watching CBS THIS MORNING: SATURDAY.
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