A life well lived and a legacy not forgotten…
Pauly Van Doren, the legendary founder of the world’s most enduring surf-skate grand Vans, who was born just as the Great Depression was kicking into gear, has died, aged ninety.
Van Doren, a high-school drop-out, whose nickname was Dutch the Clutch, created the Van Doren Rubber Co in 1966 with his little brother, James, who died in 2011, and their pals Gordon, Ryan Emmert and Serge D’Elia.
The first store, in Anaheim, California, sold American-made shoes direct to the public with the slogan, “Canvas Shoes for the Entire Family” at prices between two and four dollars a pair.
On opening day, Pauly forgot to put cash into the register.
“It was so stupid,” he said, telling customers to come back with the exact cash. “We sold something like 22 pairs of shoes that first day, and the remarkable thing is every single person came back and paid. Treat people like you would want to be treated.”
“Paul was not just an entrepreneur; he was an innovator. The Van Doren Rubber Company was the culmination of a lifetime of experimentation and hard work in the shoe industry,” the Vans company said in a statement. “Like Paul, from the first day of business, Vans was uniquely innovative. When the first Vans store opened, there were no stand-alone retail stores just for sneakers. Paul’s bold experiments in product design, distribution, and marketing, along with his knack for numbers, and a genius for efficiency turned Paul’s family shoe business into an all-American success story.”
Y’don’t have to trawl too deep into a surfer or skater’s wardrobe to find a dirty ol pair of Off the Walls or Authentics, shoes mercifully unchanged in almost fifty years.
The passing of an icon.
As Stacy Peralta said: “Vans is one of the greatest legacy companies not only in skateboarding, but in the worldwide community of action sports.”
Final words go, as they must, to Sean Penn, who used his own pair of Vans OTW slip-ons in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a decision that would propel sales of the show into the stratosphere,
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Derik, his first name was Paul.
About 21 year ago I won a writing contest for EXPN(espn’s shortlived XTREME version) and my prize was being flown out to HB for the Vans Triple Crown of Skateboarding where I got to meet paul and he laced me up with a pair of shoes and tons of gear. Dude was legit rad, or maybe I was just 14 and losing my mind. Either way my only memory of this guy was super positive and im thankful for everything hes done for skateboarding.
Sounds like a decent bloke and he obviously had a good innings
P.S.
It’d be interesting to see if Penn or the guys who made the movie ever got a kickback from increasing Vans’ sales…
“a decision that would propel sales of the –“show”–into the stratosphere”.
Do you guys do these ‘typos’ on purpose?
That being said, of all the surf brands out there, Quickdollars, Rip Curl, Billabog, etc.,
I never felt like Vans was a ‘sell-out’, like the others.
Surf skate “grand”?
Vans should have sponsored
The Spicoli World Tour *
“Smokin’ Tubes and Weed”
*It’s not too late!
Always had the designated slip-on pair of Vans for wearing bare foot. The funk cultivated in them could only have been outmatched by a hippie and their Birkenstocks.
Not only did he make a nice shoe, he made some nice burgers and hotdogs. Always manning the grill at Vans events. What other CEO does that?
As someone who worked in a skate facility, I can say there were only 2 acceptable skate shoes in the early days. Converse and Vans. And if you think we are judgmental of VALs, you should have seen skaters back in the day.
I was always a Converse guy (during the mid-80s)… camo high-tops. Had my share of Vans over the years though. RIP, Dutch.
I started off with Comverse Chucks, then got some kinda more modern basketball shoe (can’t remember brand) and really enjoyed the impact protection. Moved onto Airwalks. Always bought whatever was on sale. Sometimes that was a pair of Vans.
Airwalk and vsw were pretty huge.
Hell of a run Dutch. Safe travels.