/ FASHION n CULTURE Askew *
When Vans walked Prada and Valentino
SEP 17 2025
Why are skateboarding shoes on the runway?
Not too long ago, Alessandro Michele at Valentino presented a collaboration with Vans. Patterns were loud and graphic, featuring checkerboards, Valentino’s “V” logo paired with “I Love My Vans” types and more. The designs kept the raw canvas material and original build while performing as Valentino runway pieces, featured in the FW 2025 show.
Then, in June, at Prada’s SS 2026 menswear show, there was this shoe silhouette strongly reminiscent of the Vans Authentic — same low profile, same flat sole.
The Valentino show, titled “Le Méta-Théâtre des Intimités” (ie. “The Meta-Theatre of Intimacies”) explores the performative nature of intimacy”, while being a performance itself. The runway show was set in a seemingly public restroom, entirely drenched in Valentino red, creating an atmosphere that was striking, yet both intimate and theatrical. This setting interrogated the nature of privacy and exposure. Against this backdrop, the Vans silhouettes —historically associated with skateboarding and street culture— stood out as objects carrying personal histories into the public sphere. Casual sneakers on a luxury runway dramatized the tensions between our public self-presentation and the private identities embedded in what we wear, while simultaneously aligning Valentino with the more casual lifestyle of today.
The Vans we know today started in 1966, when entrepreneurial brothers Paul and Jim Van Doren, opened the Van Doren Rubber Company at 704 East Broadway, in Anaheim, California. What the brothers did was they brought vulcanized shoe soles (ie. the durable rubber “waffle” soles that the shoes are known for) to the West Coast. Such shoes were traditionally produced on the East coast, ever since vulcanization had been discovered by Charles Goodyear (of the tire company), since early rubber industry and other popular shoes like Converse were all based there.
The first model introduced was originally known as The Deck shoe or Style 44 (now called the Authentic), because it was originally made for boat decks. The flat rubber sole wasn’t for skating, bur rather for maintaining grip on wet surfaces.
However, by the early 70s, skaters had hijacked them, as their grippy sole worked just as well on skateboard decks. In the mid 70s, Vans leaned into this newfound interest by releasing its Off the Wall range, which featured models with more padding, that were better suited for skateboarding. Even though Off the Wall had been a series of shoes since the 70s, it was in the early 2000s that the phrase became the brand’s tagline, basically characterizing it as a whole.
Fast forward to now, and Prada, a house fluent in recontextualizing materials ever since introducing nylon to luxury goods, reintroduces a shoe that seems to nod to both the yacht and the skatepark. Although not a collaboration with Vans, the shoe bares a strong resemblance to the Authentic. It is playful, sharp, and a little ironic. The SS 2026 Menswear collection felt like urban youth at sea — fast-moving, metropolitan, yet with plenty of references to waterfront getaways. From pins featuring “LOVER’S LAKE” and “THE LAST SWIM”, to boatneck necklines, and rattan hats, the collection was not short on references to water. These were paired with open-toed leather loafers and oxfords, tracksuits, and blazers, while the soundtrack playing during the runway show features audio that hovers between the sounds of trains and waves.
Interestingly, the video released for the Valentino x Vans collaboration campaign, features models navigating the restroom from the show, as it progressively floods with water, eventually transitioning into a beach.
The shoes seemingly always find their way back to their origins.
© Cobalt Pages
© Cobalt Pages
There is something about the way the Vans authentic shoe seamlessly travels between boat decks to skateparks to restrooms to runway shows that just says everything about how fashion works. Functional, adaptable, and endlessly reinterpreted, the shoe is driven as much by lifestyle and aspiration as by utility.
This is clothing in its purest form: moving with us through life, adapting to every space it inhabits.