Vaquera’s Converse VX-1 Stands a Skate Shoe on a Kitten Heel, and Cites a Model No One Else Can Find

Converse and Vaquera are back together on October 27, and the shoe they have made is a suede skate low standing on a molded kitten heel. The VX-1 Heel arrives in two colorways, a black pair and a white pair, both on a gum forefoot sole with a carved heel block set behind an arch deep enough to see daylight through. Converse says the shape came out of its own archive. The archive it names is the part nobody outside Converse can check.

Vaquera is a New York label founded in 2013 by Patric DiCaprio and Bryn Taubensee, nominated for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2017 and shown through Dover Street Market since the end of the 2010s. Its footwear work with Converse started in November 2025 with the Chuck Taylor All Star XHi and XXXHi Slouch Wedge, four pairs built around a hidden wedge inside the sole, introduced at a Paris presentation earlier that year as the opening of a wider arrangement between Nike, Inc. and the label. Converse’s own copy on the VX-1 Heel opens with the word reunite, which settles the question of whether the first release was meant to be a one-off.

The VX-1 is where the record thins out. Converse describes it as drawing on the CS Pro-1 from its archives, a puffy Y2K skate shoe, and that sentence runs on every retail listing carrying the pair. A search for a Converse CS Pro-1 outside Converse’s own copy returns nothing. The brand’s skate line is documented well enough through CONS, the AS-1 Pro and the Chuck Taylor All Star Pro, and the CS Pro-1 is not part of that public record. Treat the reference as Converse’s to make rather than as an established model, because at the moment it is only the brand saying so.

What the press set actually shows is more specific than the copy. The upper is suede with perforations across the toe and quarter, cut low, with a padded collar and a mesh tongue that sits proud of the laces. Over each eyerow are raised stitched tabs, white on the black pair, which are the retro eyelet covers the description names. A large Star Chevron sits on the lateral side. The laces are wide and flat and every frame has them trailing well past the shoe, a styling decision the photography commits to rather than an accident of the shoot. A thin pull loop hangs off the heel with a translucent section at the top.

The sole is the argument. The forefoot is gum rubber carrying Converse’s woven tread, and behind it the midsole stops dead and a molded block picks the shoe up off the floor. On the black pair that block is high gloss. On the white pair it is matte. Converse calls the forefoot unit Super Grip, which is a skate claim attached to a shoe that no one is going to skate.

The timing is what makes this worth reading twice. Converse reported $263 million in revenue for the quarter ended August 31, down 28 percent with declines across every territory, and earnings before interest and taxes of $25 million against $39 million a year earlier. Those are Nike’s own figures, filed October 1. A brand shedding more than a quarter of its business in twelve months has an obvious move available, which is to cut price and defend the Chuck Taylor. This is the other move. The VX-1 Heel is not a Chuck, it does not carry a Chuck’s margin structure, and it is pointed at a buyer who was never coming back for a cheaper canvas high top. Whether that buyer exists in any volume is a real question. What the shoe does is put Converse somewhere its competitors are not, which the last five years of Chuck colorways did not manage.

Retail is $250, and that is the highest figure this site has recorded against a Converse release. The ladder underneath it runs through the Comme des Garçons PLAY Chuck ’70 Ox at $150, the SHAI 001 Shroud at $140, Tyler, the Creator’s Golf le Fleur Pro Leather at $105 and the Palmes Jack Purcell at $100. So the VX-1 Heel is roughly two and a half times what a Converse collaboration normally costs here. A separate molded heel unit is a different build from a vulcanized sole and accounts for part of that. The rest of it is the name on the box.

The Converse x Vaquera VX-1 Heel releases October 27 on SNKRS, in black, white and honey under style code A19134C-001, and in white, black and honey under A19133C-100. Retail is $250 in women’s sizing. Converse’s Canadian store already lists the white pair, and the US listing should surface through converse.com closer to the date. Nike’s listing credits Kim Petras as the face of the release, though no campaign frame has been issued with the product imagery.

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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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