Vans partnership with The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), with items featuring designs by California artists Judy Baca, Brenna Youngblood, and Frances Stark. The Vans x MOCA line of limited-edition footwear and apparel, celebrating creativity, culture, and California.
Born and based in Los Angeles, Dr. Judy Baca (b. 1946) is a muralist whose public works have shed light on the lives and hardships of disenfranchised communities for more than 40 years. Her best-known work is The Great Wall of Los Angeles (1974-1984). Baca reimagines Vans Classics with the Vans x MOCA Old Skool, featuring a design inspired by her work Hitting the Wall, Women in the Marathon (1984), a mural commissioned for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles that commemorates the first-time women were admitted to compete in an Olympic marathon. The design is also featured on the collection’s Judy Baca Jacket, while another piece–The World Wall: Triumph of the Hearts (1990)–decorates a fleece pullover.
Hailing from Riverside, Brenna Youngblood (b. 1979) is a lifelong California artist whose work reconsiders the art of assemblage, combining found materials and discarded artifacts to create work that addresses issues within the culture around her and in society at large. Youngblood reinterprets the Vans Authentic with her signature abstract and colorful style, giving her prints a 3-D aspect that capitalizes on negative space.
Throughout her career, Frances Stark (b. 1967) has explored a fascination with the subcultures of Southern California: skateboarding, punk, rap, and the city of L.A. itself. Stark’s love of Los Angeles is memorialized in her own version of the Old Skool, which features a hand-drawn map illustrating the streets that have inspired her for decades.
Vans x MOCA will be available for purchase online and at Vans retailers and the MOCA Store beginning November 12, 2021.
