The Old Skool 36 Gets a Cloth Protected by an Act of Parliament

Vans has a $140 Old Skool 36 sitting on its own site under a Coming Soon tag, and the most interesting thing about it is not the shoe. It is the cloth. The Premium Old Skool 36 Harris Tweed is built on a textile whose definition is written into British law, inspected by a statutory body, and stamped with a certification mark before anyone is allowed to sell it under that name. JustFreshKicks reports a September 24 launch for the capsule. Vans has not put a date on its own listing.

Vans introduced the Old Skool in 1977 as Style 36, and the brand’s own copy credits the Sidestripe to a doodle by co-founder Paul Van Doren. That number is where the 36 in this shoe’s name comes from, and on the current line it marks the Premium tier rather than the everyday model. The gap between the two is worth knowing before the price lands. On vans.com the standard Old Skool runs $75 to $80. The Premium Old Skool 36 opens at $95 and has been reaching $130 through this fall’s run, including the Pearlized Yacht Club pair that went up today. The silhouette earns that treatment because it is a good carrier. The panels are large and flat, the Sidestripe gives a designer one fixed line to work around, and the vulcanized sole still reads as a skate shoe no matter what gets stitched above it. Vans has leaned on that repeatedly this year, running the Old Skool 36 through paint splatter, pearls, and now handwoven wool.

Harris Tweed is not a brand and it is not a mill. The Harris Tweed Act of 1993 created the Harris Tweed Authority as a statutory body, replacing an association that had been running since 1909, and the Act fixes what the cloth has to be: handwoven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides. Cloth that passes inspection carries the Orb mark. Nothing else is allowed to use the name. On this Old Skool 36 the tweed runs a blue check with green and pink threading through it, and deep navy leather takes the toe cap, the heel and the eyestays. Vans then loads the upper with chrome spikes, colored gem studs and pink embroidery, stitches a Harris Tweed woven label to the collar, drops a leopard-print insole inside, and ships the foxing tape and sole already scuffed rather than clean. One correction worth making: the release coverage describes a single tweed Old Skool. Vans lists three colorways of it.

Material-led releases are the cheapest way for a heritage brand to lift its own ceiling, and most of them rest on an adjective. A brand says premium, a customer either believes it or does not, and there is no way to check. Harris Tweed is checkable down to the statute, which puts this release in a different category from the usual upgraded makeup and gives Vans something firmer to charge against than taste. The weaker half of the argument is everything piled on top of the cloth. Spikes, gems, embroidery and a factory scuffing on a certified handwoven wool is a lot of competing detail for one shoe, and the wool was already the reason to want it. The Loafer 53 in the same capsule, where the tweed sits nearly alone, shows more confidence in the material than the Old Skool does.

At $140 the Harris Tweed sits at the top of the Premium ladder. The plain Old Skool is $75 to $80 on vans.com, the Premium Old Skool 36 starts at $95, and the Yacht Club Pearlized pair is $130. Inside the tweed capsule the Old Skool 36 is the most expensive of the three, with Vans listing the Classic Harris Tweed Slip-On at $130 and the Harris Tweed Loafer 53 at $120, each in three colorways. That works out to a $60 to $65 premium over the base shoe, which is roughly what certified cloth and a hand-set pile of hardware costs to put on a vulcanized sole.

Style code VN000E8VBIP. Retail is $140, confirmed on Vans’ own product listing, where all three tweed styles currently sit as Coming Soon. Vans now lists the pair as Coming Soon on September 24 on its own product page, which confirms the date JustFreshKicks reported and makes it official rather than secondhand. It will sell through vans.com and select retailers. The Cardigan pack is the closest recent guide to how fast these textile runs move.

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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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