Vans hosted Custom Culture competition in LA

Los Angeles - SoCal-based company Vans just hosted a Custom Culture design competition in Los Angeles. Located in downtown, the shoewear and apparel brand held its annual contest for students to compete in artistic design.

The event took place in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles. The location was chosen due to Van’s roots in California. “With it being our 50th anniversary this year, we wanted to bring Custom Culture back home and we felt like it would be a great opportunity to bring the students to where we’re from,” Fara Howard, vice president of global marketing at Vans, told WWD. Blank Vans sneakers were used as canvases for students for the event. The competition allows contestants to implement their own shoe designs on the Vans shoes. Each participant had to turn in four different designs of Vans shoes which each pair representative of a theme. The themes for the competition included art, music, local flavor, or action sports. The winner of this year’s event was school John P. Stevens High School in New Jersey. One of the school’s submissions was a pair of slip-on Vans designed into a banana split dessert.

The program is meant to motivate art students with their creativity and artistic freedom. The winner of the contest receives 50,000 dollars for their school’s art education program, to help further encourage students to pursue art. Four runners-up will additionally receive 4,000 dollars for their school’s art programs. This was the seventh year in a row that this competition has taken place and also Van’s 50th anniversary. This year’s competition received over 2,400 submissions.