These shoes look like they were designed by a three-year-old. Which is very cool, because they were!
Back in June I took a look at the new Vans custom shoe creator. And while I really liked the available options, I was a bit disappointed by the 5-7 week delivery window. But since Vans had kindly provided the shoes, I took my chances and ordered a full size up for my three-year-old daughter.
The shoes arrived just under five weeks after I placed the order. Of course, I was a bit too optimistic in my estimation of how much my daughter would grow in that time and the shoes are still too large for my daughter, but that’s certainly not Vans fault.
The quality of the shoes is excellent and seems identical to off-the-shelf Vans. The colors and fabrics match what we saw on the website during the design process and the seams and gluing are fine, with no loose edges or threads.
Unfortunately, because of my size-guessing failure, I’m unable to comment on their durability. However, I can comment on showing a preschooler the real shoes that she designed on a computer: It was awesome! She was extremely excited and can’t wait to show her friends when she grows into them. Is that worth the premium price of the custom vans? I would say so.
I’m still not fond of the 5-7 week estimated shipping time, but all in all, we had a lot of fun playing with the custom shoe designer and the end result met our expectations. If you’re looking for a cool pair of shoes, and don’t mind the wait, check out shop.vans.com.