Following a Flurry of Flat Footwear, Fashion Fancies the Skate Shoe
Hardly any sneaker out-humbles a Vans skate shoe. Vans' signature silhouettes are the platonic ideal of price and purpose, made so insanely easy to wear by their utilitarian skate-deck intent that they've epitomized the youth-culture uniform in all eras spanning Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Warped Tour, and Pharrell's tenure at Louis Vuitton.
In spite of that, or more likely because of it, Vans (and Vans-likes) are suddenly the subject of mass luxurification.
At the recent Spring/Summer 2026 fashion week shows, nearly a half-dozen different luxury labels reconsidered the shape of Vans signature sneakers, either by actually partnering with Vans or producing their own form of skate shoe.
View this as a progression of the greater industry's obsession with flat footwear. That is, having squashed every old-school running shoe into borderline slippers, fashion's footwear designers are angling in on the original flat-soled sneaker (albeit one with a sole streamlined for skate decks).
And there's hardly a flatter SS26 sneaker than Prada's smushed deck shoes, which look a lot like Vans' Authentic Low Pro.
One could counter with the valid point that those shoes all basically border on retro deck shoes but notice the shape of Prada's piped seams and little logo tab.
Similarly, the SS26 iterations of Louis Vuitton's Tilted sneaker aren't necessarily a one-to-one Vans-like but the thick laces, the plump tongue, the meaty midsole that connects to a not-quite Jazz Stripe make the inspiration clear.
And there's no arguing the reference point for the terrifically familiar floral-stitched low-top spotted at Jonathan Anderson's delectable Dior debut. This is overt Vans coding not seen since, well, Anderson's tenure at LOEWE.
Both Anderson's Dior and LOEWE Vans-ish sneakers — and, for that matter, Bottega Veneta's intrecciato-woven skate shoe — don't merely nibble off Vans' plate, mind you. They appreciable upgrade the silhouette with texture and textile, playing off the high-low appeal inherent to a sauced-up set of otherwise unassuming skate shoes.
And then there were Vans' actual fashion-week team-ups, comparatively modest in scope. Frequent Vans partner UNDERCOVER printed its typical graphic treatments atop some familiar silhouettes, for instance, while 424's punkish cues lead to some tastefully pre-scuffed runway styles, though these were presumably loaner shoes rather than an actual collaboration.
The highest-end of all the Vans on display were actually only barely visible. Age-old French luxury house Au Départ created an extremely small run of bespoke Vans sneakers with bags to match. To the uninitiated, this could even pass for Vans gone Goyard. Certainly, the quality isn't too far off.
And Vans has aspirations to match. The skate company has leaned hard into the luxurious as of late through its own in-house offerings of elevated skate shoe classics offered as part of its Premium and particularly collaborative OTW lines. Meaning that, If Dior was ever interested in producing the real deal, the framework is in place.
But even as fashion houses begin pushing their own skate sneakers come next year, who could blame anyone simply opting for the classics instead?
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