This 5000 Words interview with Steve Van Doren explores photos from his archives, opening up a conversation about decades of Vans history. From using the LA County Fair as an outlet opportunity in the late 80s to now, the photos Steve pulled out for us cover a serious stretch of time…
Words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Steve Van Doren selfie from the Rowan 2 shoe launch
The Van Doren family have been putting their money where their mouth is, and supporting skateboarding since they first recognised the popularity of their products within our burgeoning community. They have been wholeheartedly involved in growing, evolving, and perpetuating our culture, using every method at their disposal for decades. The man behind exploring so many of those methods is Steve Van Doren, whose aptitude for creating events, even when budgets were dwindling, was always fuelled by a clear vision of a much bigger picture. This interview delves into different moments across an incredible timeline, illustrating how that vision, and ethos, was always there, and continues to be a guiding light. In Steve’s fathers words “it was always about the people”.
We are pleased as a store to be some of the people included in that statement. We have enjoyed many visits from the Van Dorens, and the skateboarders they support over the years. We have collaborated on projects, products, events, and have even shared shop space. It has always been memorable. Whenever Vans made plans in our city we were always involved, invited, and warmly welcomed. Much of this is down to Steve, he never overlooked us as a destination, and has been sure to bring that energy through our doors, marked by an abundance of team visits over the years.
During Steve’s recent visit to town with Tony Alva for the London Calling event, he took the time to connect with everyone. On that day we spoke about the possibility of an article. Well aware of interviews past, and with such an intimidatingly large timeline to do justice to, the idea to work on something based on photos from Steve’s photo archives arose. This proved to be a great way to hear about many amazing moments from his rich history. It’s obvious from the outset that these tales are from someone committed to ensuring Vans remains true to its core values every step of the way. We’d like to thank Steve for his time, for generously sharing his stories with us, and for always seeking to involve us in them. Enjoy some yarns from a man with many to tell…
Before there were Vans outlet stores there was the Pomona fair
This photo is from 1987, you can see a girl on the left side with a Hawaii 87 T-Shirt on, that’s how I can date it so easily. That’s my oldest sister Taffy, the gentleman to the right of her in the red shirt is my brother in law. The person at the front in the yellow Hawaiian shirt is my brother Paul. Two people above them, are two ladies with smiles on their faces. One has a chest print on her white T-Shirt, that’s my niece Jackie, who is 53 now, and I’m there right next to her, that’s me. This picture was taken at the Vans Pomona fair, the LA County Fair which is the largest fair in California. Before we had outlet stores all around the world we were a manufacturer, we made our own shoes, and had about sixty stores. Once a year the fair would come in the month of September. We would go there and sell our shoes, models that were discontinued, slow movers, or pairs that had yellowed from sitting in a window. Those shoes got sent to the fair instead of outlets, that’s where we sold the products. We had 24 days of selling shoes at the fair, and a million people went to that fair in those days. The only thing that was busier than our booth in 1987 was the race track that was there for the ponies. Everybody came to see Vans.
“They could pick out the pairs, and walk away with a case on their shoulder for $25″
We had a sign that said “two for ten, get to the end” because the line would have taken about six hours to get to you. I used to hand out script, numbers, and tell people to go and enjoy the fair, and then come back to see us in three hours. We would go through about a hundred people in an hour. It was all friends & family who we had working at the fairs, brothers, brother in laws, sisters, nieces. That’s what this picture represents, a lot of great people, and great memories. People visiting were getting incredible deals on shoes. In 1987 shoes were probably $20, bear in mind that the first year we opened up mens shoes were $4.49. In this area you see in the photo shoes were being sold for $10. If you wore a size 13, 14, 15, or 16, you could get 12 pairs for $25! We were trying to lower our inventory, not so many people wore this sizes so we had a lot, and my dad said “get rid of them”. They could pick out the pairs, and walk away with a case on their shoulder for $25, they were set.
Tony Alva getting acquainted with the bowl on the roof of House of Vans in Mexico City
This photo was taken last year in Mexico City, we recently opened a House of Vans there about a year ago. Tony [Alva], and Christian [Hosoi] came down there with me for the opening. It’s a four-storey building, the inside walls are maybe 30 or 40 feet high, with huge skeletons painted on them for Day of the Dead. The rooftop is open to the elements and has a bowl, the one Tony is skating here. I was barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers just behind there while Tony, and Christian were skating. Afterwards we had a girls hour, an hour for local kids, and then a demo followed. Mexico City is an incredible place, about two weeks ago Suicidal Tendencies played down there. Mike Muir called me up a month ago, he wanted to discuss them playing at House of Vans, he wanted to make sure that no-one knew what’s happening, but that Robert Trujillo from Metallica was going to join them that night. The store had asked for passport info so they could pick them up, but It was kept a big secret till the night.
“Metallica hadn’t played a small venue like that for twenty years”
We have been friends with Mike Muir, and Jim Muir for the last forty years through the Dogtown connection. We just made some special Dogtown shoes for Jim, I sent him about 500 pairs two weeks ago. Mike Muir from Suicidal, Jim’s younger brother, is a real favourite of mine because he has helped me out over the years. It was special having them play there. I’m not sure if you remember but Metallica played at House of Vans in London about six years ago. So this one picture reminds me of a bunch of different things. I have a picture in my office right now from the Metallica gig at House of Vans, it happened on 18th November 2016. I had a plane ticket to fly there and see them, but I gave my plane ticket to Tony Trujillo so his wife Trixie could go there with him. I’m glad she could be there and join him for that, Metallica hadn’t played a small venue like that for twenty years. The three of them, Tony, Trixie, and Robert have actually all played together as The Trujillo Trio, it’s a cool skate story how that came about. Robert remembered playing the House of Vans show in London, so when he heard that Suicidal Tendencies were going to be playing in Mexico City he reached out to Mike Muir to come and play with them. It was great Mike called me up, I kept it quiet, and people were just blown away down in Mexico City. Not only did they got to see Suicidal Tendencies, the bassist from Metallica was playing with them. That all ties into Tony Alva skating on the roof.
The origins of motorhome marketing, a firm Spring Break fixture on Daytona Beach
This photo was taken during Spring Break at Daytona Beach, and this was probably in 1990 or ’91. You can see the giant T-Shirt on the top of the motorhome, I’ve used that lots of times in a bunch of different places. I’m an event person, I remember going to a snowboarding event on Stratton Mountain, a fancy resort. I went out there at 5am in the morning to hang banners and they wouldn’t let me. So I pumped up a 20 foot Vans inflatable, again I was told inflatables aren’t allowed. Then I asked if I was able to put up apparel, and that was allowed. The big shirt in this photo is only a 10XL but I had a 20XL before. I would make a T-Shape with PVC pipe, put a huge T-Shirt on it, and tie it to a tree, I got crazy looks from them but they told me I could hang apparel, and so I did. This is Daytona Beach in March, Vans didn’t have any big budget back in those days, we had a motorhome though. In Daytona in Florida, you can drive your cars onto the beach, the sand is really hard. We would spend those two weeks there, and try to connect with the college students. This was our beach setup, we’d climb on the roof and toss out frisbees, and T-Shirts.
“I would make a T-Shape with PVC pipe, put a huge T-Shirt on it, and tie it to a tree…”
We had a whole thing where we would go to Maui Nix surf shop, and Big Kahuna. We had a BMX team, and a skate team, they had quarter pipes, and we would do demos a couple of times a day, then active that motorhome on the beach. We held a volleyball tournament. No-one attending had much money, they were all college students. So the tournament ran over five days with the five big hotels, and offered a $1000 reward for the winning team. Everyone wanted to enter to try and win. That’s how we got ourselves on the beach. Then from 3pm we’d go into the pools, and hand out size 16 shoes that people could use like swim fins, and we would have races in the pool. Or we would give people T-Shirts to swim in, they’d swim to the end and throw the shirt to the next person, like a relay race. We would do that till 6pm and then we’d go to a gigantic nightclub called The Coliseum. I would have Primo, and Diane Desiderio there, a freestyle skateboard duo from the 80s. They would skate on the dancefloor at 11pm, as well as Martin Aparijo, and Eddie Fiola who would do freestyle BMX. Then I had a buddy of mine called Rudy Coby who is an illusionist, he does an act with four legs, and of course he was wearing checkerboard Vans to go along with your Fast Times. I have videos of all this stuff, it was great. The show went on until 11.45pm, then we would leave and start the next day off again. We were at Daytona Beach at Spring Break for three or four years trying to activate the brand, as tens of thousands of students from all over the East Coast descended upon the place.
“I got crazy looks from them but they told me I could hang apparel, and so I did”
My buddy Bob who still works with me today, and has done for the last 44 years, drove that motorhome for us. He got his first ever ticket driving that thing. At night-time there would be a hundred thousand people on the street at midnight, masses of college students all out partying. The road was backed up with people and we were in the motorhome. My arm was getting tired from throwing T-Shirts and frisbees out of the passenger side window so I got Bob to stop while I got up on the roof. I was sitting there with boxes of stuff that I was tossing out left and right, as we drove along at about 1 mile per hour. Then a policeman pulled us over and wrote me up a ticket for being on the roof throwing shit. Bob was laughing at me, then the cop says “I don’t know what your laughing at, you’re getting a ticket next for driving this thing!” Hahaha, those were our early promotional days, the beginning of what I continue to do.
The Vans Triple Crown setup in Oceanside, how things looked in 2001
This was the Triple Crown event in Oceanside. What’s funny is that today the US Open of surfing is in late July/August, and it’s right by the pier in Huntington Beach. Back in the nineties you weren’t allowed to have any events by the pier, so we would go to the Huntington State Beach down to Oceanside because they had a venue set up like this photo here. That’s not there anymore, it’s all condos now. There was a built-in amphitheatre that could hold about a thousand people, and we would build a street course there. This was before you got cement courses built like they do today at the X-Games, or Vans Park Series, this was all built out of wood. This photo shows the street course, beyond that going South we would have a freestyle motocross course. Up on top above it all we would have a vert ramp, then we would also have a street course for BMX. We had four or five venues, it was a big setup. This is the early days of the Vans Triple Crown for skateboarding. We also did it for snowboarding, for surfing, for BMX, for freestyle motocross, and for wakeboarding. They’re the seven different sports we did them for, 21 events a year. We had sponsors like Gillette, Xbox, and Mountain Dew before they started the Dew Tour.
This is an example of a great skate event. We would have skaters like Bastien Salabanzi entering when he was only 14. We would do the Vans Warped Tour around the world, and have a street contest, and a vert contest at each one of them for a number of years. We would have 40 stops in the US, about 12 stops in Europe, and 7 stops in Australia, and New Zealand. We would have about 70 winners, and we’d fly them into our skateparks which we had just opened up in the early nineties. The overall winners we would sponsor for the next year or two as pro before they went pro. Some phenomenal skateboarding went down here, and I remember the setup being great. Anytime we held a contest we would always try to have some kind of am contest first, for people to get into the contest. We would have different heats, and the winner could then go and join the pros, a way of feeding people into the contest circuit back in those days.
More motorhome action with Steve Van Doren behind the wheel
This photo got kind of famous, Red Bull had done a thing called The Ripple Effect, short documentaries interviewing many different people. They spoke to Bob Hurley about Hurley for instance, and they wanted to interview me about Vans. This photo was taken at 704 East Broadway in Anaheim, our first original factory is right behind the bus there. They started the film off there. It was a fun thing to do, people from [Jeff] Grosso, to [Steve] Caballero, to [Christian] Hosoi, to [Tony] Alva were involved. My mother is even in it, I was talking about Vans as a brand, and how I’m involved with it. It came out nearly ten years ago. They were following me around in this motorhome. We took a bunch of stickers and blew them up for it, we have had this motorhome idea for two decades, every few years we get a new one. The one we have right now has 85000 miles on it, and has a wrap on it that allowed us to have artists paint directly on it as we went around. Back in the day we just used our old stickers.
Steve manning the barbecue in Hawaii, an important Vans tradition. PH: Alex Barrett
This was taken on the north shore of O’ahu in Hawaii, I’m actually heading out there again on Saturday for the Vans Pipe Masters. I’m going to be there for two weeks. The surf event runs from the 8th of December, it’s a 12 day window to run a three-and-a-half day contest. You never know when the waves are going to come, if it seems like the wrong day they won’t run the contest, if the waves are good, 20 footers, then they will. That may last a day or so, then you might have to wait for them to start again. This photo is me barbecuing at that event, my buddy Alex Barrett from France, whose name is Mayol, shot this through an inflatable checkerboard life preserver. He goes everywhere with me when I travel around the world, when I’m travelling with Tony [Alva], or Steve [Caballero], or Geoff Rowley, or Ray Barbee, or any of our team, he will always join me, and film them. He shot this photo, and has shot many others.
On this day I was barbecuing next to a little lagoon, near Haleiwa town. Lots of surfers from the longboard Duct Tape Invitational area were there this day. We also have customers we always fly out to Hawaii from different surf shops, and we bring skate shops. One day we do skateboarding with them, one day we do longboard surfing with them, one day we have a girls event at night-time. This all goes on alongside the Pipe Masters activities, if the surfs not up, we’re doing something like this, I’ll be barbecuing. There were probably about 75 people there, and we’re by a lagoon, next to the ocean. People got to try longboarding, and hang out with customers from around the United States.
“My wife always asks me why the barbecue? If I sit in the stands I’ll end up talking to two people…”
When I went to Bondi Beach in Sydney Australia I would always barbecue there. I’ve been going there for the last ten years. I would always ask the distributor there to handle the meat, I’d ask for 150 hamburgers. They would give me this big plastic bag, and they’re all rolled up, a big bag of meatballs uncooked. That’s how they bring them to you, and the you flatten them out there. I got the meatballs, and I’d have to smash them out before putting them on the grill. You run into different things, in Hawaii if you go to their regular stores their hot dogs are red. I’m not buying no red hot dogs, I’ll go to Costco and get regular Hoffy hot dogs or something. Bangers and Mash? Not with red hot dogs, I can’t cook those things. My wife always asks me why the barbecue? If I sit in the stands I’ll end up talking to two people, the person to my left, or the person on my right. If I’m on the barbecue at the Vans US Open, there are two thousand people a day I can cook for. If I’m at a skate event, I’ll maybe cook for 500 to 1000 people, and I get to talk to all of them. It brings on conversation, that’s the whole thing about it. We want things to be as accessible as possible for all of the skaters, or surfers, or snowboarders at any of our events.
“If I’m at a skate event, I’ll maybe cook for 500 to 1000 people, and I get to talk to all of them”
The whole thing with barbecuing actually took off at an event about 28 years ago, it was when we made our very first snowboard boots. I was freezing my ass off, I’m from California, Boston originally, but I’ve been out here for 60 years. I was cold there so I got out the grill. We didn’t have a snowboard manager back in those days so I was the manager so to speak, out there looking for talent. How do you do that when they have goggles, beanies, big jackets, pants, and boots, you can’t see who they are. I started making some quesadillas, then I made some hot dogs, and then some hamburgers. You’re cooking people free food for their lunch, and you get to see who people are, suddenly you see who Shaun White, Daniel Franck, or Danny Kass actually are. I’d be making notes, writing down purple goggles, blue pants, or girl wearing lime green. That’s how I got to have conversations with these people when they took their goggles off. That’s how it started though, because I was freezing, then skate events. Nowadays I’ll have vegetables, or cheese quesadillas in case someone is vegan, or vegetarian, we’ll have Boca burgers or whatever. We’re just trying to be friendly, we’ve always had chips, M&M’s, and drinks there for them. It’s a Vans tradition I started by just trying to meet & greet every athlete, we’ve always been known to do that.
“The whole thing with barbecuing actually took off at an event about 28 years ago, it was when we made our very first snowboard boots”
It relaxes everybody, everyone feels the same. We did the Vans US Open for nine years at Huntington Beach, we had surfing going on in the water but we wanted to have skateboarding involved too. That’s where we created the first park. We got the actual design of the bowl in Marseille because Omar [Hassan], and [John] Cardiel used to rave about what a good time they had there skating that. Ten years ago Joe from California Skateparks got the drawings and we built the exact same thing, and got five artists to come in and paint it so it looked the same. Just trying to inspire people with something that is new, and fun, for every athlete, whatever sport they are in, to feel like they are a part of what’s going on. You’re very important to us, so we want to make sure you’re treated well. Then seven years ago we woke up, and realised if we’re paying $100000 to the boys, we need to pay $100000 to the girls too. Since then way more girls have entered skate, snow, and surf contests. We want them to bust their butt, and learn their trade, and get better, and better all the time, so I’m happy about that.
The Vans Impact Tour on a stop at Pawnshop in Covina
This was taken at Pawnshop in Covina, a skate shop just like yours. The Impact Tour that everyone went on started off in Seattle, so I was in the motorhome, [Christian] Hosoi came with us, and we drove for two days to get up to Seattle. That was the first stop, we went to a skatepark, and then we would go to the shop. From there it went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, over to Chicago, out to New York, over to Boston, to Rhode Island, Providence, then it came back to LA where this photo was taken, then the next stop was San Diego. The final stop is coming up on the 3rd December, it’s at 808 Skate in Hawaii. We’ve got a great group of skaters ready to fly out there for that, it’s been a proper tour, and they’ve been on the whole of it. Those guys were out on the road for a month and a half, all summer long. I’m looking forward to them flying out and joining us at 808. There’s going to be pizza at the park, then we’re going to go back, and Ray Barbee is going to play in the night-time. This is a great picture of the squad who were out there, everyone from Tony [Alva], and Ray [Barbee], to Anthony Van Engelen, and Rowan Zorilla, it was a nice way to spend the summer and interact with shops like yours.
Michael Lorenzen’s no hitter for the Phillies wearing modified Vans
First of all, what a nice guy. Michael Lorenzen has been wearing Vans for years. He grew up in Fullerton which is right near Disneyland, he went to High School there. He went to college, he was with the Los Angeles Angels two years ago, prior to this season he played for the Detroit Tigers. He was pitching so good that he made the American League All-Star team, then the Philadelphia Philly’s traded for him. His first game at home in Philadelphia he pitched a no-hitter, that means he threw 124 pitches and nobody even got a hit! This picture shows that, he threw a no-hitter, and he’s wearing Vans shoes. We are not in traditional sports like baseball, baseball, or football. What he does is take our Ultrarange shoe because he likes them a lot, then he sends them to a third-party company who put the cleats on for him. He’s been doing that for about three years, we’d send him shoes, and he’d do his own thing. When he pitched the no-hitter they took his shoes from him, and sent them to the Hall of Fame for baseball. We’re honoured that his shoes are on display, and they’re Vans.
“What he does is take our Ultrarange shoe because he likes them a lot, then he sends them to a third-party company who put the cleats on for him”
I quickly sent three more pairs to the guy who does the cleats, so Michael could get a pair back again in white. The second pair I kept here in the office, and the third pair I got bronzed. I called the factory in Asia and had them make me 124 boxes that said No-No 124 on them, Michael Lorenzen, and the date. They shipped the special boxes to me in the office within two weeks so I could put 124 pairs of those white shoes in there. Then I gave them to Michael so he could give them to his friends, his team-mates, and his fans, and so he could sign the boxes. He was playing on the West Coast about a month after he pitched that no-hitter, and I was ready by then to bring a couple of the boxes down to show him. I also had the pair I had bronzed, one on a plaque, and the other one loose. His name Lorenzen ran across the shoe laces, and where the Vans side stripe is it said No-No 124. It’s a real special pair, we met him before the game, he’s a super guy, and we gave him those items there. Then he came to our office two weeks ago, and spent a couple of hours with us. We have a bell outside, and we ring the bell when something special is happening, so everyone in the company came down. We had a microphone there and he was telling us stories, and about how things are going. It was a great moment, I’ve invited him to come and meet me in Hawaii next Wednesday, him, his wife, and their one-year old daughter. We’re going to fly him over, and put him up in a hotel for five nights on the North Shore. He’ll get to go to the skate day, see the surfing when it’s on, and stay in a real nice hotel. We’ll also invite him to anything we do with the athletes, dinners, and outside barbecues of course, he is going to be one of us. He is also going to come to the office next Monday, to meet with Peter Derricks, and our designer Ryan Pozzebon, to design his own shoe. We’re going to let him design one for himself. I’m not sure what team he’ll be playing for next year.
To tie one more thing into this, Michael went to Cal State Fullerton, that college is about half a mile away from where I live. We just had the release of the Rowan 2 shoe, Rowan Zorilla, and a bunch of other skaters play baseball. They play out in Los Angeles, and wanted to do something to coincide with the release. My daughter Kristy is Director of Events for Vans, so she’s calling around all of these places to try and get a location. We had to have parameters, they had to be able to play under lights, they had to be able to have beer, and there had to be skateboarding allowed. Lots of different baseball fields refused, I told Kristy to try Cal State Fullerton, and they said yes, they agreed to all of the above, they let us have food there, a snack shack. We had about 700 people there, we had an area where people could skate on the backside of home plate, we also had to have a screen to premiere the Blurry video, so we rented a Jumbotron and put it out in left field. After the five innings were over everyone sat out in the grass and watched the video. It was a great night, Michael [Lorenzen] was still in the playoffs playing for the Phillies or he said he would have been there too. I even took Rowan’s new shoe in a 9.5 and put cleats on it for him too, so that’s what he played in on the night.
The Bones Brigade experience recently occurred in Orange County. Fingers crossed for the tour
This was a special weekend, a Saturday, and Sunday with the Bones Brigade. Mike McGill reached out to Peter Derricks who works with me, and works on all of our events these days. Mike said the the skatepark they have out there in Orange County hasn’t been open since Covid. It was shut during the pandemic, then they had a BMX accident, so it never reopened. We have a Vans store there out the front, and the mall have been trying to kick us out. We’ve been there twenty six years, and they’ve been trying to get rid of us for the last six. They want to turn the space into a bunch of stores versus just one, and a skatepark. The park has been closed but they asked if we would host and bring the Bones Brigade. They were doing a fundraiser where they get 100 people on the Saturday who get to watch them skate for a couple of hours, interact with them, sign special boards, and go to a dinner. Each person would pay $2000 to do this, the proceeds of which would go to the fundraiser. This was a day for big fans. Then on the Sunday there would be 300 people who would pay $200 to come and have a Q&A time with them for a couple of hours, then separate the guys and have them around the park so they could talk to people individually, and sign stuff. It was a full day.
“the stories we were hearing from these guys was just amazing…there were stories Stacy [Peralta] told that nobody knew”
On the first day the skating was awesome. They asked Christian Hosoi to come and join them too. Christian was actually on the team for a year, we learned all about that when they were telling stories. Him and his dad wanted to break away to start Hosoi Skateboards, which they did. The person who replaced Christian was Tony Hawk, hahaha. Hearing the stories from Rodney [Mullen], and Lance [Mountain], and Tommy [Guerrero], and Christian, and Mike [McGill], and Steve Caballero was awesome. After the first day when they went into the hotel for dinner, it was like a three hour dinner, the stories we were hearing from these guys was just amazing. There are lots of photos, it was quite something Mike McGill did. Stacy Peralta was there, George Powell was there, and there were stories Stacy [Peralta] told that nobody knew, what a weekend! I got to barbecue on the Sunday too, it was meant to be 300 people but there were 400 once people brought others along. I told them they need to take this thing on the road, we would love to be able to bring it over to Europe. It was very successful, and we were honoured to be able to have it at our skatepark, and use the Combi Pool again. In March the mall are finally going to kick us out, and put our store in a different location. They’re going to break down that park and build it into different stores, it’s sad, but before that happens I’m hoping to have one last Combi event. It should be legendary when we do the last one.
It’s still all about the people. Slip-On signed by Vans Founder Paul Van Doren
Let me tell you how this came about, it was taken on one particular night. We had different directors, or senior directors in the company for marketing, all over the world. There were probably about fifteen of them, and our president at the time Doug [Palladini] organised getting them all together in Shanghai, then the next year we met in Europe. The following year it was in Boston where it all started. That’s my dad’s hometown, and that’s where I was born. For the Boston meet, I invited my dad to come. The first year with fifteen directors was so successful I wanted to open it up. I told the president that the directors get a lot out of these meetings but suggested we get each director to invite someone from their staff to go with them. It grew from 15 people to about 32. So there are 32 of us in Boston for a global marketing meeting, people from Asia, Europe, South America, and America all together for four or five days.
“there’s always something to do with food when it comes to the Van Dorens”
On the second or third day, we took a bus down to a pizza parlour, there’s always something to do with food when it comes to the Van Dorens. We went to a famous place, it’s like a pub in England with pizza, a small place called Lynwood Pizza that has been there for 75 years. I asked the owners if I could buy out the place and have it to ourselves but they said their grandpa never closed it down for anyone, their father never did, and now the sons and daughters run it, they wouldn’t either. I wanted space for 32 of us which took up pretty much every chair in the bar anyway, except for the stools at the bar. They knew we were coming. We put all the tables together, and my buddy Chopper had some kind of microphones because my dad talks. The plan was to have some beers, and pizza, and listen to Paul Van Doren talk for a couple of hours, which ended up being three hours. He just talked, he’s the voice of the company. When we came in, there were a couple of guys in a booth in the corner, a little cubicle area. I brought out 33 pairs of shoes with that quote on there, my dad signed each pair for each person, and we gave them to them. When we got up to leave three hours later, the two guys were still there in the corner. One of them was wearing an Indy sweatshirt, and the other one was wearing a DC one. They came up to me and apologised for staying around, but said they couldn’t leave once they started hearing all these stories. They sat, had a drink, and listened to my dad’s stories with the rest of us for the night. They said it was the best ever.
Steve in the office, history on the walls, numbers in the rolodex
This photo is where I’m sat right now. You can see some of the pictures on the wall. The board on the far left that says Vans Royal Side Stripe is from an event we did in Mexico back in 2013, the graphic is made from woven thread. There are pictures, and different things that were given to me by many different people. There’s a photo of me and my mum on the left side. There’s a photo of my grandson when he was a baby, a ukulele. On the far right hand side there is a Half Cab on the wall, we had asked 25 people to create some art that represented what Off The Wall meant to them. This driftwood installation was created for me by Mofo [Mörizen Föche]. People will drop by and give me things, I recently got a nice new board from Curren Caples with his third grade picture on it. I have another office next to me with a bunch of boards in it because they won’t all fit into one. I’m surrounded by good memories here. This picture or one like it has been posted before and one thing got picked up on. In the far bottom right you’ll notice there’s a Rolodex. People were commenting on that on Instagram, they couldn’t believe I still had one. I know if I need a number though, I can still go in there and get it. If I need Weird Al Yankovic’s number that’s where it’s going to be, he’s in there under W. That’s five decades of information, I’m not Mr high-tech with everything downloaded, that’s where Stacy Peralta’s number is even though it’s on my phone now too.
Steve with Jeff Ho, and Steve Caballero celebrating thirty years of the Half Cab
This was taken when we were celebrating thirty years of the Half Cab, I bronzed a Half Cab shoe and gave it to Stevie. His band Urethane were playing that night. We managed to poach our way back into the closed skatepark in the Vans block in Orange so we could skate the Combi too. We probably had 200-300 people there, they got to skate the Combi, hang out while Cab was being honoured for his shoe, and get to watch his band play. Steve had some young kids come out and play too, it was a great night. Anytime we have anything going on skateboard-wise Jeff Ho always comes out to support, he has ben a fan of ours, and I have been a fan of his since the Zephyr days. That’s a couple of legends right there, I’m happy to have my picture taken with those guys. I mentioned before making some shoes for Jim Muir from Dogtown. Before Covid they had a reunion down in Venice Beach for the Dogtown guys, and the Zephyr team. Suicidal Tendencies played that night in a small venue. I made up shoes for Jeff Ho for Zephyr, and shoes for Jim for Dogtown. We were seeding the shoes to people who came out for that. We also built a kind of half-bowl for that event which they skated which is actually still at our office today. They also made a room which replicated what Tony Alva’s room looked like back in the Dogtown days. I have some good memories of Jeff Ho who was involved in that.
Christian Hosoi blasts a judo out of the Combi Pool and over Steve Van Doren. PH: Dan Levy
Dan Levy from Juice Magazine shot this photo, he was doing something with Christian for their 20th anniversary issue. It’s another visit to the Combi, I sat there while Christian did a judo air right over me. On that day when the Bones Brigade were skating at the event we spoke about earlier, he did the same thing. Christian lined up all of the guys from the Bones Brigade at this same angle to blast one over them. He did the Christian thing, he’s always got style, he missed a couple of times. Then I whistled, held out a $100 bill, he makes it, and gets the money. That was a fun time with the Bones Brigade, he did a backside air over all of them, plus Stacey [Peralta]. Lance [Mountain] was lying down with his head back, and everyone is sitting up, it made for an epic picture. I’s at that same Vans skatepark. You can see those banners up above there, they are from each year of the Vans Pool Party. The winners from the Pro event, the Ams, the Masters, the Legends, and the Girls are always on there. We have about fifteen banners there, it’s a pretty cool thing to see. It’s like going to a big soccer match, and there being trophies, or statues. Lots of good times with Christian [Hosoi], this is one of many.
Steve with some shoes remembering Matt Woods at a Boards for Bros event in Huntington Beach
This is the story of a young man who loved skateboarding. Boards for Bros is an organisation which we help by donating used boards and other things. Sarah [Turner] is the second person on the right, she sits across from my desk, and is involved in this organisation. The young man I spoke about committed suicide, his name was Matt Woods, and he was nineteen years old. They were trying to get everybody together for the family at our skatepark in Huntington Beach. Everybody turned up that day, Brian Schaefer from Skatepark of Tampa was there, he is part of Boards for Bros. Lots of people from the skate industry came out, there were a couple of hundred people. There were a bunch of young skaters, maybe fifty of them, all wearing shirts. They all got shoes, and boards were given out. Boards for Bros let you trade in your old board, and get a newer one. Lots of companies support this, Santa Cruz and NHS are on board, different companies come together and donate wheels, trucks, boards, and pitch in together. It’s a great way of giving back. This picture is taken with the family who lost their son, I got a picture of Matt and made some shoes up for them using the photo, a Slip-On, and a Sk8-Hi. It was a great event that Boards for Bros put together, I was just joining in. I came out and barbecued that day too.
Benjyboards advert imagery on a T-Shirt made for the London Calling Event
This London Calling event only just happened, it was amazing. I’m so glad that I pinpointed down that we needed to be there. Bod [Boyle, Don [Brown], and Steve [Douglas] had done so much work, and got everyone excited to go over for this event. The first thing they asked me is if Tony Alva would come and be a part of it. We were tight on travel budgets but we made it happen. I asked Tony and he was down to go, and so I flew there too along with Pete [Derricks], the three of us were able to come. What a great four days that was. We got to visit your store, see everyone, and feel that excitement. That Thursday night outside the gallery was incredible, there were 500-600 people on that street, it just kept building from that Thursday, I’m glad we got to visit South Bank. I was super impressed with the skate forum, everything people had to say, and the questions. Having Mark Baker, and Steve Olson appear on Zoom although they couldn’t be there in person, it was amazing seeing the two of them together. There was a sense of camaraderie, people had travelled from all over to celebrate this London Calling event, and we just had a fantastic week.
Steve surrounded by his ever-evolving shoe collection
This was taken about four years ago, I have a lot more shoes than that now. When I fill up the rack in my garage my wife makes me take the shoes to the office, and start over again. There are another 150 pairs added to the office by now, or over in the warehouse in boxes. We were just trying to have some fun with this picture, Christian [Hosoi] actually came by that day. We laid them down outside before the new building was put up here, and I made a snow angel in the middle. None of those shoes are brand new ones, I wear them all, if I get something I’m going to wear it. I just went by a surf shop yesterday, Thalia Street Surf Shop. I was dropping off fifteen boxes of shoes, and clothing for a charity, it’s one Nick [Cocores] the owner there supports for his church. Half of the store there is Thalia Street, and the other half is Vans Surf. While I was there I saw some corduroy Vans that I had never seen before so I bought a pair of those there yesterday. I’m going to be wearing those out in Hawaii.
Steve holding part of the Van Doren Give A Shit award
This is the metal part of a trophy that we give out, the trophy is called the Van Doren Give a Shit Award. When my artist drew it on paper for me I showed it to my daughter, and I said “look this is great, it’s got a Dairy Queen on the top”. She said “dad, that’s the emoji for poop”, hahaha. We have had this for about seven or eight years, that metal part is built onto a Vans waffle sole outsole, with rubber around it, so this is just a piece of it. Let’s say we have eleven Vice Presidents, each one gives this award out once a year to an employee who has gone above and beyond. Someone who really cares, someone who has done something special. That’s the story of this one. My dad used to always say “do you give a shit?” when he was asking if you care about something. That’s why I created this award, it’s the highest award we hand out around here.
From motorhomes to London buses, marketing on the move recognising 50 years of Vans
Here’s your double-decker bus on the streets of London. This is when we were doing the campaign for our 50th anniversary, I was so pleased to see it on a double-decker bus in England. When they checker-boarded that out, that was the best piece of moving marketing that I have ever seen. I was so proud of that, and the people who made it happen. I thought this might have been taken during the Vans Downtown Showdown which took place at Spitalfields but that was in 2011, and this is a few years after that.
It’s Not everday that you get to seed a pair of shoes to John Wayne
This is a picture of me and John Wayne, this was 1973 so I would have been seventeen years old. I was at a boat show in Newport Beach and that’s where I met John Wayne the famous actor. There’s a checkerboard boot in front of that, someone from Texas gave me that, and ‘This is the Godfather’ is a picture of me and a guy with a mohawk taken on the Vans Warped tour. I was lucky enough to go on 24 out of 25 Warped tours. The main photo is with John Wayne, I gave him a pair of our boat shoes, it was a captain’s shoe, a a type of moccasin, and I gave them to him at the fair. It’s a fun story, he would talk like only he could “goddamn, that’s some good shit?” I told him I wanted to give him a pair of shoes and he insisted that he pay for them. I said “no my dad will kick my ass if you pay for them”. I was only seventeen but I was trying to use the same kind of words that he was using. He swung around to the left and said “how big’s your dad?” I had to explain to him that it was my ass that was going to be kicked, haha. What a nice man. That’s a Pool Party trophy on the left side, sometimes we would give guitars as prizes.
Remembering Jeff Grosso up in Mammoth
Jeff had sadly passed away, and it was about nine months later. We were waiting for Vanessa, and Oliver to let us know when they wanted to have a memorial. They wanted to have it up in Mammoth, I guess Jeff enjoyed going up there, and being in the outdoors. There’s a really nice skatepark up there too. We brought along an inflatable screen and showed an hour long movie about Jeff at nighttime. There were about 200 people there, 100 from the San Francisco Bay Area, and about 100 from the Orange County, Los Angeles area. There was a huge part of the skateboarding community there. They went out to an area on the lake, and scattered his ashes. Jeff had gone out and scattered his dad’s ashes at that same location so they wanted his to be scattered there too. It was a great day, I got to barbecue, we got to watch the movie, and watch skating all day long. Everybody went in the water, and Oliver, his son, got to speak a little bit beforehand. We waited for the sun to go down, and then fired up the movie.
“I have a video of Jeff speaking at a Vans sales event, and whenever we want to inspire the company we put that on”
I have a video of Jeff speaking at a Vans sales event, and whenever we want to inspire the company we put that on, it’s just Jeff. I remember that day so well because my dad has just come back from Kentucky. He hadn’t been to any kind of Vans meeting for about twenty five years but I brought him along to this one. We had different people scheduled to speak. Geoff Rowley was going to talk, from surfing we had Duct Tape Joel Tudor, my dad was going to say hello, Christian Hosoi was going to talk, Tony Alva was going to talk, Jeff Grosso was going to talk, and I was going to follow Jeff. I was trying to figure out how to follow all of those great people, what was I going to do? I decided to come out of the side wall in the shoe car. My friend had been a coach at a High School for thirty years, I asked him if I could get forty members of the band to come in uniforms and follow me in the shoe cart. He told me everyone wanted to come, could he bring a hundred? The night Jeff gave his talk it was awesome, everyone was going nuts. I followed him up by driving the shoe car to the front of the stage with a hundred band members playing. They did a show for about ten minutes, a high school marching band, with the tubas going crazy, haha, it was the only way to follow that up. Jeff was so inspiring. The Loveletters live on, we played the last episode of Loveletters up in Mammoth
Steve and his dad in the mix in Milan on a Euro trip in 2018
This was taken in Milan in 2018. My dad had just moved back to California, he lived about a mile away from me, across the street from my sister. I asked him if he wanted to go an a trip with me. It ended up being me, Tony [Alva], Christian [Hosoi], Steve [Caballero], Geoff Rowley, Lizzie [Armanto], Ray Barbee, and my dad. We all flew to Europe on this trip. This was at the Milan store on the first level, upstairs was where all the skateboarding legends were meeting & greeting everyone. There was a line of 800 people outside, and in Europe you guys do things differently to how we do them in the States, the store was full, there were beers for everybody, and all types of appetisers. I got a box, and walked up and down the line handing out free swag, free food, and beers. The line kept coming into the store for two, or three hours. You can see the poster on the table, it had caricatures of everyone there, and people were getting each one signed. My dad, and I would sign them first, and then they would go upstairs to get them signed by all of the skateboarders. It was great night, there were Vans stickers, sunglasses, hats, lots of stuff so everyone who came in to see us got something. My dad sat there and signed autographs the whole time.
“I’m glad we got to take my dad on that one, he saw a lot of Europe, and people were happy to meet him. He got to see the impact, and was amazed”
Before we got to Milan we went to Malta. We had 250 of the retail stores from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and my dad got to meet all of the people who were at that meeting for two or three days. Then we spent three days in Milan, we went to see the basketball one night, the skaters skated that famous bastard Bowl that was there, Georgio Zattoni came over to join in. We also went to Stab, in Switzerland, where the VF headquarters are, and a couple of hundred more people got to meet my dad. It was a great trip, I’m glad we got to take my dad on that one, he saw a lot of Europe, and people were happy to meet him. He got to see the impact, and was amazed. You go around the world and look at feet, there are Vans shoes here, there, and everywhere. You see stores like yours that have supported us for all of these years. To have Slam City have a special shoe made up for them, to see the different things you can do for the brand and for others. My dad was blown away to see wholesale accounts that are loyal, alongside his own stores that he started years ago in the United States. To be somewhere like Malta, meeting managers from all over the world, seeing the headquarters where other brands are too, and having all of these people listen to his stories. It was an amazing trip for him to be on.
We would like to thank Steve for working with us on this one. It was a pleasure to hear all of these stories which are just a drop in the ocean for someone who has dedicated so much time and care to furthering skateboarding. We would also like to thank Becky Bowler, Amanda Perez, and Peter Derricks at Vans for their support. Shop with us for all of the latest from Vans.
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