Since its inception in 2004, Japanese label Bedwin & The Heartbreakers has reimagined streetwear with a laidback West Coast-skater edge. The brand’s effortless vibe makes it the perfect partner for Vans, which has served up streetwear-friendly skate shoes since 1966.
Using vintage American bandanas for colorway inspo, Bedwin's new Vans sneakers look like a graphic designer redesigned their little brother’s skate shoes. The result is excellent, dude.
For this new collection, founder Masafumi Watanabe continued with the motif that he’s effectively turned into a tradition, reframing the bandana motif as a logo, of sorts, for Bedwin x Vans collabs.
Available November 16 on Bedwin & The Heartbreakers' website and the next day at some Japanese retailers, the Japanese brand’s Vans Knu Skool Vlt LX shoe comes in a black and white bandana-patterned colorway, while the Vans OG Authentic LX will also be available in monochrome gray tones.
This iteration also lets the Knu Skool’s signature 3-D white Jazz stripe shine as opposed to the flat, suede one used on the original Old Skool sneakers, giving each shoe a bit more dimension.
These new colorways are much more muted than the first collab that Bedwin & The Heartbreakers and Vans dropped a couple years ago.
The three shoes they dropped back in 2021 included red, yellow, and blue bandana-patterned colorways, incorporating the bandana pattern into the shoes’ Jazz stripe and the tongue. Even better, the fabric was cut differently for each iteration, ensuring that no two sneakers were the same.
This time around, Bedwin and Vans kept the Jazz stripe white, though the greys and blacks still coordinate with Vans’ signature red “off the wall” logo on the sneaker.
Even still, this capsule is decidedly quieter than the previous ones, but it’s definitely a clear celebration of the brands’ shared ethos of casual, no-nonsense clothes.
The muted tones of the 2023 version of the bandana motif make them a perfect everyday sneaker, especially if paired with the bright green pants from the recent Bedwin & Dickies collaboration.
Both Vans and Dickies are operated by parent company VF Corp, so this new Bedwin collab really brings everything full circle.
