Vans Old Skool 'Vibrant Yellow'
Colorway: Vibrant Yellow/True White · Style code: VN0A4BV5FSX · Release date: 2019 · Price: $2682 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Vans Old Skool 'Corduroy - Primary' (VN0A4BV500Y) · Vans Old Skool J.Crew Corduroy Sneakers (VN0A4BV501J) · Vans Old Skool 'What The Buffalo - Multi-Color' (VN0A4BV503I) · Zhao x Vans Old Skool 'Year of the Rat' (VN0A4BV506G) · Vans Old Skool 'Mix & Match - Grape Juice Bright Marigold' (VN0A4BV516V)
Single-colour brights are the cheapest way a shoe company can make a familiar silhouette look new, and this 2019 pair goes all in on one. Vibrant Yellow covers the quarter panels, the toe overlay and the heel counter without a second tone anywhere, leaving the True White stripe, laces and sole edging to do the contrast work. From a distance the shoe reads as a solid block of colour cut by one white line.
It held the $60 price the model carried across its general-release range at the time. Structurally it is stock: metal eyelets, a padded ankle collar, a reinforced toe and the vulcanised rubber sole with its waffle tread. Yellow is the least forgiving shade in the line for dirt, particularly around the foxing tape where the white and the colour meet, and it is also the one that dates a pair most clearly, since bright monochromes come and go from the range faster than black, navy or check.