It’s been a long time since I’ve featured any custom works on here, especially of the Vans Customs program types, but when our friends, the Kadirwarriors from Singapore reached out to me, to feature a design that they came up with as a collective, then I thought I’d show a little love for them, for being such Vans fanatics, in a country that is relatively new to Vans on a more widespread scale. Even if the rare and limited Vans are mostly being imported via eBay auctions and Facebook group transactions, it’s this same passion that resonates to the masses, who might just want to step outside of their normal everyday style, and buy that first pair of Slip-Ons, Authentics, Old Skools, or Sk8-Hi’s. Any sub-culture needs it’s advocates, and these guys are a perfect example of that. Thank you all for supporting Vans like we do, and living their culture, creating your own path, while holding down Singapore for all of us Vans enthusiasts, proving Vans is truly a world-wide brand.
Here’s a brief message from Faisal (@cacal) of Singapore’s most notorious group of Vans collectors, all whom are first cousins or brothers, the Kadirwarriors.
“We present to you, the Kadirwarriors x Vans Part IV, the ‘Checker Warriors’ or shorten for ‘CW-IV’. Silos of choice, were two of our favorite models: The style 44 & 98, also known as the Slip-on and Authentic. With the Vans Customs program, our entire Kadirwarriors came up with a design that we unanimously agreed upon, which we want to share with you here.
The ‘CW-IV’ defines the Kadirwarriors and our love of Vintage Japanese Americana style, especially the vintage Vans look, with the iconic checkered foxing. We chose the checkerboard motif as it commemorates every single one of us to why we are here in the first place. The olive (Army Green) theme was added as it has been instilled in most of us, having that military vibe in our style. The ‘Warriors’ repeat pattern on the Authentic was selected to commemorate one of our favorite classic designs, the FuckingAwesome x Vans. I remember we were all looking forward to the Authentic releasing. Fun fact: Under The Palms made a repost of all the official 3 colors released worn by us in the @underthepalms IG account. We were all so stoked!
We personalized both models with embroidery stencil of our initials ‘KWAR’ on the left shoe, and the shoe name ‘CW-IV’ on the right, respectively. We finished the Slip-On with our trademark skull hand-sign logo on the panel. You wouldn’t want to know how many emails we had to send to Vans to get the logo approved for us to put on this pair. Vans has very strict protocol on pictures you want to submit. Lucky it went through, (perhaps with some referrals from some US Vans employees we befriended through IG).
As some of you guys may know, Vans.com doesn’t ship to Asia, but after 3 weeks, the shoes finally arrived, safely in Singapore. Just for fun, we have decided to assist with another 20 pairs, so if any friends want to be a part of the family and have a pair, please do contact us on our official IG @kadirwarriors or email us at kwar.official@gmail.com.
Thank you.”
Faisal (@cacal)
more pics after the jump
