Vans' New Sneaker Is a Beautiful Slip-on Skate Shoe Hybrid
Vans' classic sneakers are individually great so they surely only get better when you smash 'em together, right? Consider Vans Erap shoe, an oddly-named sneaker that's a hybrid of the Era and Slip-On silhouettes.
The Vans Erap may have a clunky moniker but its design is remarkably crisp. The low-profile skate shoe simply applies the Era's lacing structure to the top of a sleek Slip-On, complete with elasticated gore panel for easy-on.
Some sneakerheads noticed that Vans' Erap is noticeable more rounded than the typical Era shoe, perhaps due to the fact that the Slip-On forms this sneaker's base.
But, otherwise, that's it. No frills, no nonsense.
The only additional feature is that Vans launched its Frankenstein'd Erap a handful of cheery colorways, ranging from semi-classic primary-colored checkerboard to single-tone blue and beige.
Makes sense that such a strange shoe would roll out with some relatively simple, (dare I say) even slightly statement-y designs.
And, for the record, I do get that "Erap" is, like Vans' new shoe itself, a combo of "Era" and "Slip-On" but it simply is not fun to say. Looks fun to wear, though, going off the slick, stylized campaign shots
Note that though Vans' Erap only has only released in Japan thus far, some sellers on eBay have several pairs listed in unforeseen colorways and at only marginally inflated prices: the Vans Erap sneaker retails for ￥6,600 (about $42) in Japan but the secondhand sellers are offering them for $75.
Vans' in-line offering has been hitting some serious highwater marks as of late.
The recent Speed LS shoe, a '90s skate shoe throwback if there ever was one, is as good as anything coming out of Vans' quietly excellent top-tier OTW sub-label, itself responsible for pushing Vans' design language forward by a couple decades.
But that's also the beauty of Vans' signature skate silhouettes, which have hardly evolved over the past few decades: it doesn't take much to improve on perfection.
Sometimes, in fact, all it takes is a double dose of perfection.
