In a word, precision, is really all that needs to be said of this latest custom painted Vans Slip On by Swaves. Yet this custom sneakers’ back story deserves more. Swaves was recently contacted by Dan Kanter to create a Emilio Pucci themed design for his fashion consultant wife Yael as a birthday gift. Interestingly enough Dan just happens to be the Musical Director and Guitarist for someone by the name of Justin Bieber. Pretty cool.
If you are up on your sneaker-customizer-following-Instagram-game or diehard Vans fan you likely know the name MonsterMac Designs and his plethora of accurately detailed Vans customizations. He often shares progress shots of each 1 of 1 pair he creates on a nearly daily basis. To kickoff the revival of Customizer Workspace Wednesday’s MM has allowed PaintOrThread to share with the rest of the world where boring all white canvas kicks become one of a kinda wearable MonsterMac Designs.
With a history of 50 years, 500+ comics, and now 3 feature films Iron Man is quite the accomplished comic book character. Apart of the Marvel Comics empire the red and gold superpower machine super hero is not just for comic book nerds. Sneakerheads have fully embraced the metal suit look of engineer billionaire Tony Stark. With the release of 2008’s Iron Man movie the idea to use the red and golden suit for a custom sneaker fan art design only continued to grow. 5 years later and on the release of the 3rd movie we have scoured the web for what we’d like to consider the best Iron Man
Some people can just draw really well. They’ve got the whole scaled perspective thing down. When they decide to take their drawing ability from paper to sneakers the process is a bit different and the outcome is something to be proud of. Joe Ziegler of TwoLeft Custom Shoes made the transition to drawing on shoes years ago but possibly one of his coolest custom projects just finished this year. In a chance occurrence Joe changed a pair of all white canvas Vans Slip Ons to a pair commemorating the brands VP of Events, Steve Van Doren, the son of founder Paul Van Doren, for Steve’s daughter Kristy Van Doren.
The type of custom designs that can speak for themselves are a favorite here at PaintOrThread.com. But the least we can do is give a good description of what is pictured and where you can contact the artist that made them. Even then you’d be surprised how many times people still comment asking where they can get the featured shoes. But the word where is not a question for these custom Vans. Living in southern California probably had something to do with the design on this previously all white pair of Vans slip ons. Randy De Jesus of the streetwear brand Rad Is Rad put his drawing
Today Vans announced the Top 50 Semi Finalist schools as part of their annual Custom Culture contest. That 50 school list equates to 200 different customized Vans with four entered from each high school’s brightest artists. That may seem like a lot but realize that up to 1500 schools may have entered split into 5 regions. Heck the STATE of California has it’s own region (fitting of course). That equals a total of 6000 custom Vans made for this contest. Imagine having to weed through to get the Top 50.
A post sharing the completed customization work from MonsterMacDesigns is long long long over due. This recently finished pair of Batman vs The Joker Vans by the customizer Jordan “MonsterMac” McMahon is cream of the crop when it comes to custom hand painted Vans sneakers. The ever so often used white canvas sneaker features a very comic book styling of the polar duo. Batman was placed on the
