Vans Knits a Cardigan Over the Slip-On 98, and Its Own Waffle Sole Story Needs a Fix

Vans built a Slip-On out of a sweater. The Cardigan pack arrived in mid-June, two colorways on the LX Classic Slip-On 98 platform, with a knit textile upper standing in for canvas and gold-toned pins pressed into it. Vans lists this one as Black / White, style code VN000D9WY28. Every feed that covered it filed the same code under “Blue,” working from the multicolor yarn rather than the name Vans actually gave the shoe, and this post carried that error too until now.

The Slip-On is Vans Style #98, and the 98 in the LX Classic 98 name is that style number, not a year. The Van Doren Rubber Company opened at 704 East Broadway in Anaheim on March 16, 1966, founded by brothers Paul and James Van Doren with partners Gordon Lee and Serge D’Elia, and it numbered its shoes in the order it made them. Style #44 became the Authentic, #95 the Era, #36 the Old Skool, #38 the Sk8-Hi. The #98 came later, and Vans cannot quite agree with itself on when. The corporate timeline says 1977 on two separate pages. A Vans Stories feature on the same site says the Slip-On “first landed in 1979 as the Vans #98.” Both are Vans in its own voice, so the defensible version is that the shoe arrived in the back half of the 1970s, got carried by Southern California skaters and BMX riders, and was famous well before Hollywood found it.

The Cardigan makeup swaps the midweight canvas for a thick, irregular weave that reads like bouclé or a tweed sweater, denser around the collar and the elastic side panels, and studs it with gold-toned die-cast pins carrying Route 66 shields, peace signs, flowers and Vans logos. The LX platform underneath is the one Vans uses on the plain canvas 98: a taller sidewall with a gloss finish, a Sola Foam ADC footbed the brand says is at least 30 percent biobased polyurethane, and foxing tape Vans describes as drawn from 1990s Osnaburg reinforced outsoles. What nobody can confirm is worth saying out loud. Vans’ own product page still lists the upper as midweight canvas, retailers variously call it a knit overlay on canvas or a full knit upper, and no source anywhere states where the shoe is made.

The waffle outsole under all that knit comes with a claim attached, printed on Vans product pages including this one: “Signature waffle outsole pattern for reliable grip since ’66.” Vans’ own history page contradicts it. Writing about the Authentic, the brand says the first Vans outsoles used a simple diamond tread, that Paul Van Doren noticed them cracking at the ball of the foot, and that the fix, adding extra lines to the waffle pattern, went on to become one of the most recognizable features of Vans footwear. The Smithsonian holds the actual manufacturing mold Vans used for that waffle sole and dates it to 1968. So the sole that shipped in 1966 was a diamond, and the waffle is a repair that arrived after it. This site published the 1966 version and is correcting it here. A tread pattern that has stayed in production for almost sixty years does not need a backdated origin to be impressive.

Retail is $110. That sits $45 above the standard Classic Slip-On at $65, $35 above the Premium Slip-On at $75, and $15 above the same LX Classic Slip-On 98 in plain canvas at $95. Read another way, the LX platform costs about $30 and the knit and the hardware account for the other $15, which is a fair ask for a textile that changes the shoe from ten feet away. The market has since voted. Three months on, Vans has it at $89.95, Undefeated at $66 and Sole Classics at $55, so patience paid better than speed on this one.

The LX Classic Slip-On 98 “Cardigan” in Black / White is VN000D9WY28 at $110, with a Brown / Pink companion as VN000D9WRPK at the same price. Vans published no newsroom post for the pack, so there is no confirmed launch date. Sneaker Bar Detroit put it at June 19, boutiques had pairs before that, and mid-June 2026 is as precise as the record supports. Both colorways are on Vans.com, with stock at Extra Butter, Lapstone & Hammer and Feature. More Vans and the full Slip-On archive here, including the Slam Jam Classic Slip-On 98 and the NEIGHBORHOOD Authentic 44.

Source: Extrabutterny

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The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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