Vans Sk8-Hi 'Mixed Quilting'
Colorway: Black/White · Style code: VN0A38GEVP6 · Release date: December 28, 2018 · Price: $2832 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Vans Sk8-Hi 'Flame' (VN0A38GE2W1) · Vans Sk8-Hi 'Strawberry Pink' (VN0A38GEGY7) · Vans SK8 Hi 'New York Yankees' (VN0A38GEKU3) · Vans Sk8-Hi 'Ground Breakers Black' (VN0A38GEOE6) · Vans Sk8-Hi 'Birch' (VN0A38GEOUE)
The Sk8-Hi answered a change in how people skated. As pools and ramps pushed skating vertical through the late 1970s, ankles started taking the impact, and Vans responded in 1978 with Style 38: a tall collar, padded for protection, built over the pattern the company already had. It was the first high-top made for skateboarding, and the padded collar became as much a signature as the height itself. Quilting normally appears on the model only at that collar, as functional stitching holding padding in place. Here the technique is lifted off the collar and run across the panels in more than one grid, so the upper is assembled from stitched textures instead of flat canvas. It turns a construction detail that began as protection into the shoe's entire visual argument, all of it in black.