“Foot the Bill: Vans’ project to help local business”
It is a month already that Vans has launched its “Foot the Bill” campaign. The intent is to help business partners, small shops, live music venues, restaurants and art galleries in these uncertain times. Each affiliated business had the opportunity to create a personalized Vans model: starting from the basic “Classic Slip On” or “Era”, they played with colours and prints according to their style and DNA. Each model is produced in a limited edition of 500 pairs and the end customer can add further customizations. The revenue will go directly to each partner and will be used to support the business and those who work there.
All the partners share the same passion for skateboarding, which is Vans’ core value. Each of them has, however its own brand image, shaped by the place they live in. For example, Bastard, concept store (but also an art gallery and meeting place) based in Milan, combined the floral motif of Steve Van Doren’s famous shirts (founder of Vans) with the skulls, symbol of the skate culture of the 80s. The pattern is black and white, so that the consumer can colour them by hand, at home. A nice way to spend time during quarantine, isn’t it? The same positivity is conveyed by the white, pink and yellow slip on of Pam Pam, the first London sneakers shop to specialize in female audience. The watercolor background is reminiscent of cool summer days and the stylized thumbs up are “a nod of encouragement” we all need now more than ever.
These are just two examples of a much wider collaboration database, which is the testimony of a beautiful, creative and above all useful project. Vans’ goal is to help up to 80 local businesses around the world. Van Doren told the press that this initiative is an “outstretched hand” towards the small partners who have helped Vans over the years. And, he adds: “we would not be what we are now without them”. In addition to this, Foot the Bill is also a moral support: it seems to suggest to growing business that believing in their personal aesthetics and ideas is still the right path to succeed.
Next June, Vans will once again sponsor the Skate and Surf Film Festival, the international event reaching this year its fourth edition. SSFF focus on the surf and skate scene, brings together activities, workshops, contests, documentaries and much more. This year the festival goes online and is called V-SSFF, where the V stands for Virtual precisely.
