Key Points
- The BAPE x Vans Knu Skool Pack releases July 15 for $150 per pair, in unisex sizing.
- Two colorways: a darker black-camo pair and a louder olive, pink, and purple pair.
- Each pair swaps the Vans stripe for a BAPE shooting star and adds shark-teeth midsole detailing.
- Sold through BAPE and Vans, both online and in select retail stores.
BAPE and Vans are back together, and this time they picked the loudest silhouette in the Vans catalog. The BAPE x Vans Knu Skool Pack arrives July 15 at $150 per pair, pairing A Bathing Ape's ABC camo with the Knu Skool — Vans' exaggerated, chunk-soled reboot of the Old Skool that has become the brand's flagship entry in the ongoing '90s-revival sneaker wave.
The pack comes in two colorways. The black pair keeps it dark with black ABC camo, while the louder colorway mixes olive camouflage with pink and purple camo across the panels. Both pairs replace Vans' signature sidestripe with a BAPE shooting star, wrap a set of shark teeth around the forefoot midsole, sit on a black suede base built to actually skate, and finish with "A BATHING APE" embossed on the midsole and metallic silver BAPE-head lace dubraes, per Sole Retriever.
Choosing the Knu Skool over the classic Old Skool is the tell. BAPE and Vans have collaborated before — on the Old Skool and Sk8-Hi in prior years — but putting the camo on Vans' bulkiest, most maximalist shape is both houses reading the same room: chunky is selling, and a shoe this busy needs a canvas that can carry it. It is streetwear's founding camo brand meeting the silhouette built for the current oversized moment.
Both pairs are unisex and retail for $150 through BAPE and Vans, online and in-store. It is the latest in a busy run of Vans collaborations — following the Parra x Vans OTW Old Skool 36 and the Bodega x Vault by Vans Mid — as the brand leans on partners to keep the Old Skool family in the conversation, even as the silhouette's influence shows up on luxury runways.
Source: Complex, Sole Retriever
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