Vans is the only global sneaker brand whose cultural position was earned rather than bought. It made a grippy rubber-soled deck shoe in 1966, sold it cheap and direct from the factory, and when skateboarders adopted it, it changed the shoe for them. Nobody else would serve that sport. It is also, right now, a company in serious trouble: Vans revenue has fallen from $4.16 billion to $2.15 billion in four years — almost exactly half — against a parent company target of $5 billion. And in India it is a licensed brand sitting inside a subsidiary of Metro Brands, so small that its own listed parent does not mention it to investors.
Vans earned its place in skate culture rather than buying it, and it is now a company in trouble — revenue has halved to $2.149 billion in four years. In India it is a licensed brand run by Metro Athleisure, with no official Indian website and thin authorised distribution. We could not establish a single Indian price for the Old Skool: the readings ran from ₹3,999 to ₹9,999, and that spread is the finding.
Snapshot
- Founded
- 16 March 1966, Anaheim, California, as the Van Doren Rubber Company — Paul Van Doren, Jim Van Doren, Gordon Lee and Serge D’Elia
- The original model
- Shoes made in a factory with the shop attached. You picked a style in the morning, they made it, you collected it that afternoon
- Owned by
- VF Corporation, which bought it for $396 million on 30 June 2004
- Revenue
- $2.149 billion in VF’s FY2026, down 9%. Peak was $4.162 billion in FY2022
- The missed target
- VF publicly targeted $5 billion of Vans revenue by FY2023. It did $3.68 billion that year and has fallen every year since
- In India
- Licensed to Cravatex Brands in 2019; Metro Brands bought Cravatex in 2022. Now run by Metro Athleisure Limited
- Official India site
- There isn’t one. vans.com/en-in resolves to the US site, and Vans’ store locator does not list India
- Bankruptcies
- One, in 1984 — caused by an expansion into baseball, wrestling, boxing and skydiving shoes
Where Vans came from, and why the origin actually matters
Most sneaker origin stories are about design. Vans’ is about a shop next to a factory.
The Van Doren Rubber Company opened a 400 square foot store in Anaheim on 16 March 1966, deliberately sited beside its own manufacturing so that it could cut out wholesalers, distributors and retailers entirely. That is the actual innovation, and it is the reason everything else happened: Vans could make single pairs, in custom colours, to order, at a price a teenager could afford.
The founding-day story — the shelves holding only empty boxes and display models, twelve customers choosing styles in the morning and told to come back in the afternoon, the founders having no change in the register and handing over the shoes on trust — comes from published company histories and from Paul Van Doren’s own memoir. It traces back to the company. We could not find a contemporaneous document confirming it, and Vans’ own about page does not tell the register half at all. It is the story Vans tells. Take it as that.
Paul Van Doren died in 2021, aged 90. VF confirmed it.
The model numbers, which almost everybody gets wrong
Vans originally sold by style number rather than name, and the numbers are routinely garbled online — including in the brief that started this audit. Here is what Vans itself says:
| Style | Name | Year | What it changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| #44 | Authentic | 1966 | The original. A canvas deck shoe on a vulcanised waffle sole |
| #95 | Era | 1976 | Designed with Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta. Added a padded collar — the first shoe Vans changed for skaters |
| #36 | Old Skool | 1977 | The first shoe to carry the Sidestripe, and a suede toe and side panels for durability |
| #98 | Classic Slip-On | 1977 | Laceless. Became the checkerboard icon after Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982 |
| #38 | Sk8-Hi | 1978 | Vans’ first high top, as skateboarding went vertical. Second model with the Sidestripe |
The most common error is calling the Sk8-Hi style #98. It is not. #98 is the Slip-On; the Sk8-Hi is #38. And the Sidestripe, by Vans’ own account, was “a random doodle by Paul Van Doren.”
The other model worth knowing is the Knu Skool, from 1998 — a chunky nineties reinterpretation of the Old Skool with an oversized 3D sidestripe, fat laces and a puffed tongue. It is currently the shoe doing most of the brand’s fashion work.
The waffle sole, and what Vans actually contributed
This is the claim that needs checking, because it is stated confidently everywhere.
What is documented: Vans made the Authentic with a distinctive waffle-tread outsole using a proprietary rubber formula, heated, compressed and moulded, producing a sole that was extremely grippy, durable and flexible.
What overreaches, in three parts. First, the waffle sole was not designed for skateboarding. It was on a vulcanised deck shoe in 1966 — Vans’ own SEC filing describes the company as “a domestic manufacturer of vulcanized deck shoes (such as the Authentic)”. Skaters found it about a decade later. Second, we found no patent for it. The only Vans footwear patent that surfaced in a credible source is US 4,783,909 from 1988, for a reversible heel counter. Anyone who tells you Vans patented the waffle sole should be asked for the number. Third, Vans’ waffle and Nike’s waffle are separate things and are constantly conflated; we have no sourcing for a comparison, so we are not making one.
What Vans genuinely contributed is narrower and more interesting than a patent: a thick, soft, high-grip vulcanised gum outsole, on a cheap shoe, sold direct from a factory that would make you a single pair in the colour you asked for. Grip, replaceability, cheapness and customisation. All four are documented, and all four are exactly what a skateboarder in 1975 needed.
The turning points
1976, Alva and Peralta. Two skaters worked with Vans on the Era, adding ankle padding. They also suggested the phrase “Off the Wall”, taken from skaters coming out of pools off the wall. The brand’s most famous line came from its customers, not its marketing department.
1982, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The checkerboard Slip-On went from a Southern California shoe to a global one.
1984, bankruptcy. This is the part that gets left out. Riding the film’s success, Jim Van Doren expanded hard — a new Orange, California facility with over a thousand employees, and a push into specialty footwear for baseball, football, umpiring, basketball, soccer, wrestling, boxing and skydiving. Over twenty-one months Vans lost about $3.6 million and built $12 million of debt. When the bank called a $6.7 million note in 1984, the company filed Chapter 11. Reorganisation required Jim Van Doren’s removal; Paul came back to run the recovery, and Vans emerged in 1986. The brand that survives on doing one thing well nearly died from doing eight things badly.
1988 and 1991. A $74.4 million leveraged buyout by McCown De Leeuw, then an IPO in 1991 at $14 a share.
1995, Warped Tour. Vans sponsored the first one, which tied the brand to punk and hardcore for two decades.
And the quiet one. Vans’ own FY1996 filing records that 76% of its shoes were already made offshore by third-party manufacturers, and the Orange factory had closed in July 1995. The made-on-site-in-California model — the thing that made Vans Vans — was three-quarters dead eight years before VF bought the company.
30 June 2004, VF Corporation completed its acquisition for $396 million, at $20.55 a share.
What VF did with it, and what happened next
For fourteen years, extremely well. In September 2018 VF said Vans had compounded at 17% a year since the acquisition to become a $3 billion global lifestyle brand, and set a target: $5 billion by fiscal 2023.
Vans is no longer VF’s biggest brand. The North Face overtook it in FY2024 and did $4.0 billion in FY2026 while Vans did $2.1 billion.
VF’s chief executive said in May 2026 that “Vans is starting to show momentum with a return to growth in Americas DTC for the first time in over four years.” Read that sentence carefully, because it is precise and it is doing a lot of work: the growth is in one channel, in one region. In the quarter after it, ended June 2026, Vans overall was still down 8%, with the company blaming global wholesale. As of the last reported quarter, Vans is still shrinking.
One number is worth putting beside that, and we will state it and let you draw the conclusion. VF has taken goodwill impairments on Timberland, Dickies and Icebreaker in recent years, and sold Supreme to EssilorLuxottica for $1.5 billion and Dickies to Bluestar. It has taken no goodwill impairment on the segment containing Vans — revenue has halved and the carrying value has not been written down. VF has also said nothing about selling Vans; we checked its last two results releases specifically and there is no portfolio-review or divestiture language about the brand at all.
- FY2022$4.162 billion — the peak
- FY2023$3.68 billion, against a stated $5 billion target
- FY2026$2.149 billion, down 9% again
Almost exactly half the brand’s peak revenue, in four years.
How Vans came to India, and who actually owns the licence
The ownership chain here is genuinely tangled and most Indian coverage has it wrong. Here it is, step by step.
The VF–Arvind years. VF Arvind Brands Private Limited was formed in September 2006 as a 60:40 joint venture between VF Mauritius and Arvind, running Lee and Wrangler. On 5 November 2011 Arvind sold its entire 40% to VF for ₹257 crore.
When did Vans actually arrive? Two sources disagree and we are printing both. One report says VF launched Vans in India in 2011 through the Arvind partnership. Another says Vans entered in 2017 through VF Arvind Brands, opening its first stores at Ambience Mall in Vasant Kunj and Forum Mall in Koramangala. The reconciliation that fits both — 2011 for distribution, 2017 for the first exclusive stores — is plausible and unsourced, so we are not asserting it. While we are here: one of those reports says VF acquired Vans in 2014. It was 2004, on VF’s own filings, and Indian outlets repeat the wrong year.
2019, the licence moves. VF granted Cravatex Brands Limited the rights to run Vans in India. Cravatex already held Fila and Proline, and said it would invest in brand-building, open fifty stores over five years, and “expand its appeal beyond teenage skateboarders.”
2022, Metro Brands buys the licensee. On 20 October 2022 Metro Brands agreed to acquire 100% of Cravatex Brands. Cravatex has since been renamed Metro Athleisure Limited, and its board is populated by Metro Brands executives. So the same listed company that runs Metro, Mochi and most of Crocs in India also holds the Vans licence.
Now the finding that matters most to an Indian buyer, and it is a negative one. Vans does not appear anywhere in Metro Brands’ own investor disclosures. Its FY2026 earnings presentation names Crocs, FitFlop, Fila and Clarks among third-party brands, and reports 1,032 stores across 221 cities. Its Q1 FY2027 deck breaks out Metro, Mochi, Crocs, Walkway, FitFlop, Foot Locker, New Era, Fila and MetroActiv. Vans is in neither. Metro Brands lists it on its own brand-portfolio page, and then does not mention it to the market.
Two more verified facts that complete the picture. VF has exactly one Indian subsidiary and it is a sourcing office — VF Sourcing India Private Limited — with no retail or brand entity here at all. And there is no official Vans India website: vans.com/en-in resolves to the American site, and Vans’ own store locator covers Europe and the Middle East with no Indian cities in it.
The 2019 plan of fifty stores in five years is not evidenced anywhere. We could not establish an Indian store count and we are not going to estimate one.
- Cravatex BrandsTakes the Indian licence in 2019
- Metro Brands buys Cravatex2022 — the licence moves with it
- Metro Athleisure LimitedRuns Vans India today; no official Vans India site
Vans itself does not sell to Indians directly, which is why the pricing below is so hard to pin down.
What Vans costs in India — and why we cannot give you one number
Prices checked 21 August 2026. This is the hardest pricing section we have had to write, and we are going to be straight about why.
Almost no Indian seller publishes a verifiable price for Vans, and that absence is itself the finding. There is no official Vans India site, and metroatl.in, the licensee’s own storefront, publishes no price list we could check. Neither do Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa Fashion, Tata CLiQ or AJIO’s brand pages. Superkicks, one of India’s main premium sneaker retailers, now returns “No products found” for Vans — it no longer stocks the brand at all.
What we could read: one AJIO product page listing a Vans Old Skool at ₹3,999, an archived Superkicks page giving an Old Skool MRP of ₹3,999 inclusive of taxes, and an unauthorised site quoting an Old Skool variant at an MRP of ₹9,999.
That is a 2.5-times spread on the same silhouette, so here is the arithmetic on both readings rather than a single confident figure. American list prices exclude sales tax; Indian MRP includes 18% GST. At about ₹95.7 to the dollar:
| Market | Listed | Ex-tax | In ₹ |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $75.00 | $75.00 | ₹7,178 |
| United Kingdom | £70.00 incl. VAT | £58.33 | ₹7,608 |
| India, at the ₹9,999 reading | ₹9,999 incl. GST | ₹8,474 | ₹8,474 |
| India, at the ₹3,999 reading | ₹3,999 incl. GST | ₹3,389 | ₹3,389 |
At ₹9,999 India is about 18% dearer than America ex-tax, which is exactly what 38.5% duty on a landed value plus a thin Indian margin would produce. It is a normal, unremarkable number. At ₹3,999, India would be 53% cheaper than the United States ex-tax, which is not a plausible full-price MRP for an imported shoe carrying non-recoverable duty at that rate. The ₹3,999 figures are far more likely to be a discounted price presented as a price, or a lower-specification India-market canvas make.
Other American list prices, for reference: Authentic $60, Slip-On $60 to $65, Skate Era $70, Sk8-Hi $80, Knu Skool $80, Half Cab $90, UltraRange 2.0 $100.
Two things worth understanding about how this stack works. Customs duty of 38.5% is levied on the landed transfer value, not on retail — the GST on top is creditable to the importer and washes out. And MRP is a Legal Metrology declaration while GST is charged on the transaction value, so a discount does not reduce the tax base. The gap between an American price and an Indian one is made of duty, GST, margin and the brand’s own pricing decision, and only the first two are publicly knowable.
There is also a documented legal reason the Indian grey market is large. Under the Baggage Rules 2026, in force since 2 February, a returning resident traveller has a ₹75,000 free allowance and can carry several pairs in at zero duty — against an authorised importer paying 38.5%. Meanwhile the BIS Quality Control Order restricts commercial imports to factory lines holding a BIS licence, which keeps the authorised assortment narrow. Cheap legal personal imports and restricted legal commercial imports explain the Indian Vans market better than any story about demand for fakes.
- Old Skool in the US, list
- $75, about ₹7,178
- Old Skool in India, ex-GST
- ₹8,474 (at the ₹9,999 reading)
- Gap
- +18%
- Checked on
- 21 August 2026
The other Indian reading we found, ₹3,999, would put India 53% below US list ex-tax — which is why this audit gives a range rather than a number.
What Vans actually gave the world
Skateboarding, and it is the cleanest case of earned cultural credit in sneakers.
The chain is short and every link is documented. Vans made a grippy vulcanised deck shoe in 1966 and sold it cheap and direct. Skaters adopted it because it gripped a board and because a torn pair could be replaced without a conversation with your parents. Then Vans changed the product for them — the Era in 1976 with Alva and Peralta adding ankle padding, the Sk8-Hi in 1978 adding a high top as skateboarding went vertical. Even the brand’s slogan came from its customers: “Off the Wall” is what skaters said about coming out of empty pools.
Compare that with the other global sneaker brands. Converse was adopted by subcultures that liked it precisely because it was anonymous. Nike bought its cultural position with endorsement contracts. Vans is the one that got there by making a shoe for people nobody else was making shoes for, and then listening to them.
The honest counterweight is that this is no longer the business. Three sourced points, none of them speculation. VF’s own 2018 growth plan put heritage footwear at 8 to 10% growth — the slowest line in it — while targeting 13 to 15% for apparel and accessories and 30 to 35% for digital direct-to-consumer, with a stated ambition of becoming “the number three global sport lifestyle brand.” Lifestyle, not skate. The Indian licensee’s stated objective in 2019 was to move “beyond teenage skateboarders.” And the shoe currently doing most of the work in the range is the Knu Skool, a 1998 fashion silhouette, while the classic Era has been folded into the Skate line and no longer appears as a standalone heritage model at US retail.
VF has never disclosed a split between skate and fashion and we are not going to invent one. But the direction is not in dispute.
Vans has no official Indian website, and that absence explains most of what is wrong with buying it here.
Reputation and controversies
The Wavy Baby case, which Vans won. In 2022 the art collective MSCHF released the “Wavy Baby”, a distorted parody of the Old Skool. A district court granted Vans a restraining order and preliminary injunction requiring MSCHF to put its revenues in escrow, and on 5 December 2023 the Second Circuit affirmed on every issue. It applied the Supreme Court’s Jack Daniel’s decision: because MSCHF had used Vans’ marks at least partly for source identification, the heightened First Amendment protection of the Rogers test did not apply, and ordinary trademark analysis governed. It was the first appellate decision applying Jack Daniel’s, which makes it genuinely significant beyond footwear.
Walmart. A case Vans brought in 2021 over knockoffs of the Old Skool and Sk8-Hi sold under Walmart’s own labels ended in a settlement on 12 November 2023, on the eve of trial, with Walmart agreeing to a permanent order barring it from selling them. Terms undisclosed.
Xinjiang — and the claim that is out of date. This one matters for a site like ours. VF told a UK parliamentary committee in October 2020 that it does not source products or materials from suppliers in Xinjiang, and that the ASPI report had incorrectly associated The North Face with a named Chinese textile company — ASPI removed those references after VF objected. Vans was never in the report at all.
Labour, in VF’s own numbers. VF’s FY2025 responsibility report covers 1,240 supplier facilities and 1,070 audits. Tier 1 ratings included 72 Red and 15 Black, with 34 facilities not accepted. That is 87 Tier 1 facilities at the two worst grades, self-reported. The report does not break the ratings out by brand, so none of it can be attributed to Vans specifically, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Environment. VF has science-based targets and hits some of them: 64% recycled polyester against a 50% goal, 94% sustainable cotton, waste diversion above 97% for four years. It is badly behind on the two that matter. Scope 1 and 2 emissions are down 29% against a 55%-by-2030 target. Scope 3 — the supply chain — is 19% above the baseline, though down 7% year on year. And renewable energy across owned and leased facilities was 29% in FY2025 against a target of 100% by FY2026. That last one is not a stretch target missed narrowly; it is a target that will not be met.
The 2023 cyber attack. On 13 December 2023 VF detected unauthorised activity on its systems and ejected the intruder on 15 December. Its SEC filing states the attacker stole personal data belonging to approximately 35.5 million individual consumers. Social security numbers, bank details, payment card data and passwords were not compromised. The operational effect was real — interrupted replenishment, delayed fulfilment, cancelled customer orders — and VF concluded the impact was not material to its financial condition. Widespread reporting calls it ransomware; VF’s own filing does not use the word, and we are reporting the discrepancy rather than resolving it. VF gave no country breakdown, so whether Indian customers were among the 35.5 million is unknown.
India. We found no reported Indian judgment involving Vans or VF. We could not search the court records themselves, so read that as nothing found rather than nothing existing.
Buying it in India: fakes, lookalikes and one live example
The tells, built from what Vans itself has told a federal court is definitional. In the Walmart complaint Vans asserted: the Sidestripe, and its proportion — Vans argued a copy reproducing “at least two-thirds” of it infringes; a rubberised sidewall of consistent height right around the perimeter; a three-tiered or grooved detail on the uppermost part of that sidewall; a textured toe box wrapping the front; and specific visible stitching patterns.
Use that as your checklist, because it is the brand’s own.
The foxing tape
The rubberised sidewall should hold a consistent height right around the shoe. Uneven foxing-tape height is the single most common fake tell, and it is the feature Vans itself pleads in court.
The Sidestripe
Vans has argued that reproducing at least two-thirds of the Sidestripe infringes. Check its proportion against the shoe’s length, not just its presence.
The sidewall groove
There is a three-tiered or grooved detail along the uppermost part of the sidewall. Fakes usually flatten it into a single band.
The outsole compound
The waffle pattern is easy to copy; the soft high-grip compound is not. A fake feels harder underfoot and squeaks differently on a smooth floor.
The seller’s GST number
Any Indian site trading under the Vans name without a GST number, a named company and a claim of authorisation is not authorised — the licence belongs to Metro Athleisure. This takes thirty seconds to check.
Channel risk here is structurally high for a specific reason: authorised distribution is thin. There is no official Vans India site. Superkicks has stopped carrying the brand. The licence sits with Metro Athleisure, which sells through marketplaces and its own storefront. When a global brand has few legitimate doors in a market, the illegitimate ones multiply.
A live example, checked on 21 August 2026. A site trading as vansindiastore.in presents itself under the Vans name, says it is “based in Bangalore and we are selling AUthentic shoes only”, gives an Indiranagar address and a mobile number — and discloses no GST number, no company name and no claim of authorisation, which would be impossible anyway since the licence belongs to Metro Athleisure. The site still contains placeholder “Lorem ipsum” text from its template. A second domain, vans-india.in, markets Vans sales and refused to load for us at all.
That combination — a .in domain using a global brand’s name, no GST number, no named entity, and unfinished template text — is a textbook grey-market tell, and unlike most authentication advice it is something you can check yourself in thirty seconds.
And the thing that is not a fake. The checkerboard slip-on silhouette is copied throughout India and most of those copies are legal. Look at what Vans actually enforces: it has gone after Walmart, Target, Primark and MSCHF over the Sidestripe and the specific sidewall, toe-box and stitching trade dress — not over the slip-on shape or the checkerboard pattern in themselves. A plain black-and-white checkerboard slip-on with no Sidestripe and different sidewall construction is a lookalike, not a counterfeit. A shoe carrying the Vans name, logo or Sidestripe without authorisation is the real thing to avoid.
Common questions
Who owns Vans?
VF Corporation, which completed its acquisition on 30 June 2004 for $396 million. VF also owns The North Face and Timberland, sold Supreme to EssilorLuxottica for $1.5 billion in 2024 and sold Dickies in 2025.
Who sells Vans in India?
Metro Athleisure Limited, formerly Cravatex Brands, which holds the India licence and is wholly owned by Metro Brands — the same listed company behind Metro, Mochi and most Crocs stores here. VF’s only Indian subsidiary is a sourcing office, and there is no official Vans India website.
Did Vans invent the waffle sole?
It made one from 1966, with a proprietary high-grip rubber compound, and it is a real contribution. But it was not designed for skateboarding — it was on a deck shoe, and skaters found it about a decade later — and we found no patent for it. The only Vans footwear patent that surfaced is a 1988 one for a reversible heel counter.
What is the difference between an Old Skool and a Sk8-Hi?
The Old Skool is style #36 from 1977, the first shoe to carry the Sidestripe, with a suede toe and side panels. The Sk8-Hi is style #38 from 1978 and was Vans’ first high top, built for ankle support as skating went vertical. It is not style #98 — that is the Slip-On, and the mix-up is everywhere.
Why is Vans so hard to find in India?
Authorised distribution is genuinely thin. There is no official Indian site, Vans does not appear in Metro Brands’ investor presentations despite Metro owning the licensee, and Superkicks stopped stocking the brand. The 2019 plan for fifty stores in five years is not evidenced anywhere.
Is a checkerboard slip-on without a Vans logo a fake?
Usually not. Vans enforces the Sidestripe and its specific sidewall, toe-box and stitching trade dress — not the slip-on shape or the checkerboard pattern. A copy carrying the Vans name, logo or Sidestripe is a counterfeit. One without them is a competitor.
References
- Vans corporate history — the 16 March 1966 founding and the four founders, the style numbers #44, #95, #36 and #98 with their years, the Sidestripe as a Paul Van Doren doodle, the Alva and Peralta Era, Fast Times, the 1984 Chapter 11 and the 1995 Warped Tour
- International Directory of Company Histories, Vans Inc — the 400 sq ft store, the ownership split, the founding-day account, the 1984 diversification into baseball through skydiving footwear, $3.6m lost over 21 months, $12m of debt, the called $6.7m note, Jim Van Doren’s removal, the $74.4m 1988 buyout and the 1991 IPO at $14
- Encyclopedia.com, Vans Inc — the same company history, plus domestic cost disadvantage and cheap imitations as causes of the 1984 filing, and emergence from bankruptcy in 1986
- Smithsonian Lemelson Center — the factory-adjacent store cutting out middlemen, the proprietary high-grip rubber and waffle moulding process, the Era’s ankle padding, the origin of “Off the Wall”, and US Patent 4,783,909 for a reversible heel counter
- Vans Sk8-Hi product page — the Sk8-Hi as Style 38 from 1978, Vans’ first high top and the second model to carry the Sidestripe
- Vans Knu Skool — the 1998 launch, the 3D Sidestripe, fat laces and puffed tongue
- NBC News — Paul Van Doren’s death at 90, confirmed by VF Corporation
- Vans, Inc. FY1996 Form 10-K, SEC — Vans as a domestic manufacturer of vulcanised deck shoes, the Orange facility closing in July 1995, and 76% of shoes already made offshore by third parties in fiscal 1996
- VF Corporation, 27 April 2004 — the announced acquisition of Vans for approximately $396 million
- VF Corporation, 30 June 2004 — completion of the merger at $20.55 a share
- VF Corporation, September 2018 — the 17% CAGR since acquisition, the $3 billion size, the $5 billion by FY2023 target, and the growth split putting heritage footwear at 8 to 10%
- VF FY2023 fourth-quarter results — Vans revenue of $3,682.9m in FY2023 against $4,161.9m in FY2022
- VF FY2024 fourth-quarter results — Vans at $2,785.7m, down 24%, and The North Face overtaking it
- VF Q4 FY2026 earnings deck — Vans at $2,149.1m in FY2026 against $2,349.4m in FY2025, and The North Face at $4,005.8m
- VF Corporation, 20 May 2026 — the chief executive on Vans returning to growth in Americas direct-to-consumer, and the completed Dickies sale
- VF Q1 FY2027 results, 29 July 2026 — Vans down 8% reported in the most recent quarter, with Americas DTC growth offset by global wholesale declines
- VF Corporation FY2025 Form 10-K — the Reinvent turnaround programme and “delivering the Vans brand turnaround”, Vans as the largest brand in the Active segment, and the $1.5 billion Supreme sale to EssilorLuxottica completed 1 October 2024
- VF FY2025 10-K, goodwill rollforward — impairments at Timberland, Dickies and Icebreaker, and no impairment in the Active segment containing Vans
- VF FY2025 10-K, Exhibit 21.1 — VF Sourcing India Private Limited as VF’s only India-jurisdiction subsidiary
- Business Standard, 5 November 2011 — VF Arvind Brands formed in September 2006 on a 60:40 split, and Arvind selling its 40% for ₹257 crore
- Franchise India, 29 September 2017 — Vans entering India through VF Arvind Brands with first stores at Ambience Vasant Kunj and Forum Koramangala
- Fibre2Fashion, 20 June 2019 — Cravatex Brands granted the India rights, the fifty-stores-in-five-years plan, and the stated aim of moving beyond teenage skateboarders (note: this source misdates the VF acquisition to 2014)
- Indian Retailer, 20 October 2022 — Metro Brands agreeing to acquire 100% of Cravatex Brands
- Metro Athleisure Limited, registry record — the former name Cravatex Brands Limited, incorporation 22 December 2016, the Mumbai office, capital and the Metro Brands directors
- Metro Brands, Vans page — Vans listed in Metro Brands’ own brand portfolio
- Metro Brands FY2026 earnings presentation — 1,032 stores across 221 cities, ₹2,864 crore of revenue, and third-party brands named as Crocs, FitFlop, Fila and Clarks with no mention of Vans
- vans.com/en-in — resolves to the United States site, checked 21 August 2026
- Vans store locator — covers Europe and the Middle East with no Indian cities, checked 21 August 2026
- Vans US, Old Skool — $75 list, checked 21 August 2026
- Vans US, Classic Slip-On — $60 to $65 list, checked 21 August 2026
- Vans UK, Old Skool — £70 including VAT, checked 21 August 2026
- AJIO — a Vans Old Skool listed at ₹3,999, checked 21 August 2026
- Superkicks, Vans collection — “No products found”, checked 21 August 2026
- Vans, Inc. v. MSCHF Product Studio, Second Circuit, 5 December 2023 — the injunction and escrow affirmed on all issues, applying Jack Daniel’s and disapplying the Rogers test
- Sourcing Journal, 2021 — the Walmart complaint, and the trade dress Vans asserts: the Sidestripe, the consistent-height rubberised sidewall, the three-tiered sidewall detail, the textured toe box and the stitching patterns
- SGB Media, November 2023 — the Walmart settlement on the eve of trial, with a permanent order and undisclosed terms
- VF Corporation, written evidence to a UK parliamentary committee, October 2020 — VF’s statement that it sources nothing from Xinjiang, and ASPI removing its references to The North Face after VF objected
- VF FY2025 Environmental & Social Responsibility Report — 1,240 supplier facilities and 1,070 audits, 72 Red and 15 Black Tier 1 ratings, Scope 1 and 2 down 29%, Scope 3 up 19% on baseline, and renewable energy at 29% against a 100%-by-FY26 target
- VF Corporation Form 8-K/A, 18 January 2024 — the 13 December 2023 incident, the theft of personal data of approximately 35.5 million consumers, what was not compromised, and the operational disruption
- VF factory list — full Tier 1 disclosure and approximately 80% of Tier 2 by spend, not broken out by brand
How we research and verify brand audits:
our methodology.
Vans is the most likeable company among the global sneaker brands and one of the most troubled. It earned its position honestly — it made a cheap grippy shoe, skaters took it, and it changed the shoe for them rather than the other way round. Nothing about that was a marketing strategy, and you can tell because the brand’s own slogan was coined by its customers.
What has happened since is a slow substitution of that business for a fashion one. VF’s own growth plan put heritage footwear last, the classic Era has been absorbed into the skate line, and the shoe carrying the brand right now is a chunky reinterpretation from 1998. Revenue has halved in four years against a $5 billion target VF announced publicly. VF says the turnaround has begun; on its own most recent numbers, that is true of one channel in one region and not of the brand.
For an Indian buyer the practical verdict is unusually blunt. Vans is barely present here. No official website, no store locator entry, no mention in the listed accounts of the company that holds the licence, and one of the country’s main sneaker retailers has dropped it. We could not establish a reliable Indian MRP, which is itself the finding. If you want a pair, buy through Metro Athleisure’s own channels or a named brand storefront, check the foxing tape and the Sidestripe, and treat any standalone “Vans India” website with no GST number as exactly what it looks like.
The one brand here that skateboarding actually chose — sold in India by a company that does not tell its investors it sells it.
