Vans Comme des Garçons x Vans Authentic 'CDG Print - Black White' 2018
Colorway: Black/True White · Style code: VN0A33TASHM · Release date: October 27, 2018 · Price: $120 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Comme des Garçons x Vans Authentic LX 'Graffiti' (VN0A33TAKXY) · Comme des Garçons x Vans Authentic LX 'Graffiti - Black' (VN0A33TASO7)
Vans opened its doors on 16 March 1966 and sold twelve pairs that day. What those customers bought was a deck shoe, thicker-soled than the canvas competition of the time, and it is the shoe the company now calls the Authentic. Sixty years of skate models, checkerboards and collaborations later, it remains the most reduced thing in the catalogue: canvas, a lace row, a rubber sole, no logo on the side.
That emptiness is what makes it a useful surface. An all-over print has nowhere to compete with, so the graphic becomes the shoe. Comme des Garçons used it straight here, repeating the CDG mark across the white canvas in black until the pattern reads as a texture at a distance, and anchoring it with a single raised logo block on the toe so there is one hard edge in an otherwise soft design.
It is a collaboration that changes almost nothing structurally, which on this silhouette is the correct decision.