Vans Authentic 44 DX 'Anaheim Factory - Needlepoint Checkerboard'
Colorway: White/Multi-Color · Style code: VN0A54F29GL · Release date: July 21, 2021 · Price: $150 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Vans Authentic 44 DX 'Anaheim Factory - Cow' (VN0A54F241A) · Vans Authentic 44 DX 'Anaheim Factory - Emerald Checker' (VN0A54F241H) · Vans Authentic 44 DX 'Anaheim Factory - Scene BG' (VN0A54F241I) · Vans Authentic 44 DX 'Anaheim Factory - Light Blue Checker' (VN0A54F241J) · Vans Authentic 44 DX 'Anaheim Factory - Scene AT' (VN0A54F241N)
Paul and Jim Van Doren opened the Van Doren Rubber Company in Anaheim, California in 1966, with a small retail counter attached to the front of the factory floor. The first shoe they made was catalogued as the #44, later renamed the Authentic. Styles were numbered rather than named: 36 became the Old Skool, 38 the Sk8-Hi.
The Anaheim Factory line brings those numbers back and, more usefully, brings back the specifications behind them. The Authentic 44 DX uses a heavy ten-ounce canvas, cotton laces, the original drill lining weight and a higher-gloss foxing tape, details that all drifted over the decades as production moved and costs came down. An UltraCush sockliner is the single concession to the present.
This pair carries a needlepoint-style checkerboard, a pattern Vans first printed onto canvas in 1977 after Steve Van Doren noticed skaters drawing the squares onto their shoes by hand. It released in July 2021. Nothing about it is technically ambitious, which is exactly the proposition: the 1966 specification, made again.