GABRIEL TANNER DESIGNS PHOTOGRAPHY ABOUT

VANS

CREATIVE IDEATION / MOOD BOARDS / SUSTAINABILITY / SUSTAINABLE FASHION / FOOTWEAR DESIGN / BRAND IDENTITY / BRAND STRATEGY / INNOVATION / TECHNICAL SKETCH

Through the partnership of Laguna College of Art and Design and VANS, I was tasked with coming up with a sustainable footwear concept for the company. Through research and visual audits I came up with two collection concepts that revolve around combining sustainability with style and function.

The first collection was inspired by the nature of Skateboarding. Skateboarding is raw, it’s rugged, it’s rough. Clothing gets destroyed and ripped and patched up, and I want to emulate this feeling within my design. These shoes would be made from upcycled and repurposed denim scraps to create a patch work denim shoe. I chose the Old Skool and Authentic models for their recognizable and timeless look, and the Knu Skool for it’s unique features.

Some key ideas I wanted to translate in this shoe were that the shoes outer sole would be created using regenerative rubber, a process already being implemented in footwear specifically by VANS, and that in a bulky shoe like the KNU Skool, denim scraps or unused fabrics can be shredded down and pressed to make the padding for the body and tongue of the shoe.

The second collection was created in light of VANS upcoming 60th anniversary. I wanted to create a unique collage pattern based on all of the print ads VANS has put out over the years. Below on the left were my reference sources, while the image on the right as well as the statement, were my interpretation of how I wanted the collection to look and feel, and how it would be marketed. All of this would be sustainable through the use of regenerative cotton as the textile and water soluble inks for the prints.

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