Book Review - Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans by Paul Van Doren
by Chloe Hawkins
Published a mere week and a half before sneaker mogul’s death, Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans is Paul Van Doren’s last contribution to his legacy as a businessman who never failed to lead with his heart. Authentic is a candid memoir that adds heart and depth to the epic mythology behind one of America’s most iconic 20th century sneaker brands. Over the past fifty years Vans has rooted itself firmly in the landscape of fashion. The brand has come to represent so much more than a simple shoe. Vans has carefully crafted an aura of coolness pieced together initially with images of surfing, skating, Southern California, rebel teenagers and garage bands.
More than the shoe itself, it was the lifestyle of it’s wearers that brought the brand to life. The shoes have never been very expensive, costing around $50 USD on average. Opting for a much different route than brands that pride themselves on exclusivity, Van Doren suspected that inclusion was cooler. But as we come to learn in his memoir, that aura of coolness surrounding Vans was not something that Van Doren had envisioned from the very start. The book offers a detailed retelling of a series of business decisions that crafted the heritage of Vans. It’s the voice of a guy who turned his experience working at a rubber company in the 1950s into producing the shoes that Lil Wayne wears.
The book begins with Van Doren acknowledging that his success in business has, contrary to what you might believe, absolutely nothing to do with shoes. In the beginning of the book the author claims he “could have been growing potatoes” instead of making shoes, and he still would have been a success. Cheeky, sure, but what he probably meant was that his real success could be attributed to his knack for locating problems and never waiting for anyone’s approval or direction. Over and over again in the book, readers are guided through a series of instances where Van Doren realizes an inefficiency about how a task is being done and subsequently revolutionizes productivity by streamlining some aspect of the workflow.
Before embarking on a business of his own, Van Doren worked in this manner at a rubber company for two decades. During that time he realized hundreds of ways that his boss could have improved production. He’d pitch these efficiency suggestions to management. Sometimes they heeded Van Doren’s advice, but mostly he was shot down. Whether or not his suggestions were approved, Van Doren always implemented them anyways and without fail, they improved productivity and profit margins. Every. Single. Time. Or so states his memoir.
The book’s intent seems to serve as a spirited Vans business memoir for inquiring brand enthusiasts, but what was produced is more like a self-portrait of the man be-hind the curtain. The chapters are organized in chronological order, efficiently packaged one on top of the other like shoeboxes on a display case for business students. The professional lessons outlined therein are worth their weight in rubber, but it’s really the character of this man that is the backbone of this story. The most important business lesson is to be the example. Paul Van Doren led his life quite intuitively, acting on every impulse toward efficiency and always with a self-calculated, heroic judge of character. He never undervalued the worker, unlike many of his wealthy corporate colleagues. There is even an en-tire chapter dedicated to demonstrating the importance of the men and women who bring the product to life with their own hands. This chapter is affectionately named, “Respect the Workers.”
One of the pillars of Vans heritage is the brand directors’ undying commitment to adaptation and receptivity. When he realized it was largely moms shopping for the shoes, he catered the experience to them. High schoolers be-came a major sales demographic, so he began offering school color-ways. Kids started doodling checkers onto the rubber sole, so Vans began printing their now famous checkerboard designs. Van Doren was incredibly perceptive when it came to turning observations into actionable information for this business. It’s these kinds of personal tidbits that make the book an endearing read.
The content of these chapters undulates between cold hard business advice like “Respect the Workers” and to “Sell What You Believe In” but then offers levity with titles like “Go Off the Wall” and “Shit Happens”. This juxtaposition of formal and casual is a mirror image of what Vans seems to have blossomed into over the past half a century. Some of the most enjoyable parts of the book are those anecdotes that explain how the brand became aligned with its iconic culture of coolness, like when Van Doren impulsively offered one of the most legendary surfers in the world, Duke Kahanamoku, a custom pair of shoes to match his Hawaiian shirt. Thus was born the wildly printed canvas slip-ons.
This book is an eye opener for anyone who’s ever been a fan of Vans shoes, for anyone who hopes to start a big company, and particularly for anyone who’s curious about how a East Coast high school drop-out wound up creating the pair of shoes that swept over every school and skate-boarder in southern California and beyond. The book promises to take you on an intimate journey through one man’s repeated encounter with inefficiency. This heartfelt story of one man’s receptivity and character-driven impulsiveness is very likely to inspire you to apply some of his principles to the way you conduct yourself both in business and in life. If there’s one thing you’ll take away from this book, it’s that authenticity never goes out of style and being “off the wall” really pays off.
Illustrations by Anna Whittemore