On the 16th of March 1966, Paul Van Doran and his 3 partners opened their First store in California, The Van Doran Rubber Company were completely different from any other company because they manufactured the shoes themselves and sold them directly to the public, customers would order their shoes in the morning, and go about their daily business whilst their shoes were being made for them.

The customer would then come back in the afternoon to pick up their shoes hot off the production line.

 Because of the sticky rubber soles on Vans shoes they became very popular in the 1970s with Skate boarders, the soles gave them a more secure grip on their boards.

The Vans Era was born in 1975, its padded collar and a choice of different colors made it an instant hit with boarders and the Era became a must have shoe for every skate boarder.

By the end of the 1970s Vans Had 70 stores in California Alone and begun trading through dealers all over the United States and Internationally

 The early 1980s proved to be a quite difficult time for the Vans company as they tried to compete with the larger sports shoe companies by producing Shoes for other types of sports such as Baseball, Basketball and Wrestling.

Although the Vans Core range were selling well the large range of Shoes that they were producing was draining their finances and in 1983 they were forced to file for Bankruptcy due to building up massive debts.

It took only 3 Years for Vans to pay of all of their debts, and emerge from bankruptcy and the Original owners kept the company for another 2 years before selling it on to an investment banking firm.

The new owners invested alot of money into the company which helped Vans to expand onto the world wide market.

In 1998 Vans opened a 46,000 square-foot indoor-outdoor Vans Skate park at the Block in Orange County, and in the same year they began to offer public stock on the stock exchange.

 

 In 2004 Vans launced their Custom range, which allows Customers to design their own Vans Classic Slip on shoe, with a range of colors and patterns to chose from you can let your imagination run wild.

Vans today are amongst the most popular of sports shoes, and are still loved by skate boarders, BMX bikers and many other extreme sports people, they are also popular with non sports types who find them casual, cool and most of all comfortable.