competition designs. Vans PR Department already had a relationship with Disney and this led to a Hollywood movie requesting some checkerboard shoes (Van Doren in Palladini, 2003, p14). The movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High starred an emerging Hollywood actor called Sean Penn. He played teenage Californian Surfer dude, Jeff Spicoli. The director explains why they chose Vans ‘In those days, a lot of actors could decide what they wanted as their costume... Sean Penn brought in the checkered Vans slip-ons himself ’ (Herkerling in Palladini, 2003, p130). The shoes worn by Spicoli throughout the movie were all over the billboards and even featured as the ‘star’ on the Soundtrack album cover, (figure 5).
Figure 5 45