Sterling P. Sanders
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VF Corp, Vans, "Off the Line"

Off the line

Creative Director

// Idea, Pitch

VF Corp

// Van's shoes

We were inspired by the collaboration Vans did with Chef Tyler Kord in creating the No. 7 Classic Slip-On, the worlds first official kitchen shoe, and a quote from Doug Palladini about how to approach kitchen culture. We turned to a chef that we know well, Jamie Bissonnette 

In the best scenarios, your partners should have more good ideas than they have time to present, Starcom found itself in just this position when we were pitching the Vans business for VF Corp. This idea focuses on a Van’s specific target, the Expressive Creator, and builds on a cultural area that they had already begun exploring.

Meet Jamie. He’s a chef and a restaurant owner in NYC. He also has worn Vans every day of his life. That’s what he told us, we really have no way of knowing. Jamie was aware of the chef’s kitchen shoe you created in response to Tyler Kord’s request. But together with Jamie we came up with a way to get even more ingrained in food culture. Running a restaurant is like managing a family. There’s more to it than cooking. Jamie has a few dozen employees, grinding away without glory to help make him look good every day and he wants to take care of them. Small restaurants have dozens of employees who aren’t covered by the Affordable Care provisions, and some restaurants in L.A. have even started adding a surcharge of up to 10% to diners checks to cover health insurance for their staff. We think there’s a better solution. The idea is to let influential chefs design their own limited edition Vans, that will be sold in their restaurants and online. The proceeds of the shoes will go into a fund to pay for health care for the non salaried kitchen staff who make the restaurants run.

A chef designed shoe that sees some of its proceeds donated to cover health care costs for small independent restaurant workers makes sense from a brand and business point of view.

We wanted to get Jamie’s take on Vans and kitchen culture. Jamie’s observations around health care being an important cultural issue in Restaurant culture led us to think about a collaboration with a purpose that transcends the functional and is built around the idea of empowering those who may not be celebrity chefs but certainly are Expressive Creators.