Authentic
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“Authentics, Old Skools, Sk8-Hi’s, Slip-Ons, or Eras? How many smiling memories of life in your Vans, the fun in your footsteps, and that bit of connection to a culture of skaters, surfers, graffiti artists, rockers, and ‘Off the Wall’ renegades? All of this for the reasonable price of an excellent shoe, made by people who held fast to what was right and knowing what was wrong. Van Doren’s founding tale of an iconic brand is a delightful mix of biography, advice, business profile, and inspiration, a compulsively readable ode to work and a lesson in honest retail.”
Barnes&Noble.com
In the tradition of best sellers such as Shoedog, Authentic is a surprisingly candid, compelling memoir by a high school dropout who went on to establish one of the world's most iconic brands
Paul Van Doren is the founder of Vans - the shoe company beloved by skateboarders, creatives, and fans everywhere for its laid-back, colorful SoCal vibe, and famous for its people-oriented company culture. How did Van Doren, who started as a 16-year-old "service boy" at a local rubber factory, establish a family shoe business that evolved into a globally recognized brand with annual revenue of more than four billion dollars?
A blue-collar kid with no higher education and zero retail experience, Van Doren leveraged a knack for numbers, a genius for efficiency, and the know-how to make a great canvas tennis shoe into an all-American success story. In 1966, when the first House of Vans store opened, there were no stand-alone retail stores just for sneakers. Paul's bold experiments in product design, distribution, and marketing (Why not sell custom shoes? Single shoes?), aided by legions of fans - skateboarders, surfers, even Sean Penn wearing Vans' famous checkerboard slip on shoe in the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High - made Vans a household name.
But there was also back-breaking work, a shocking bankruptcy, family turmoil, and a profound shift in how customers think about athletic shoes. Authentic details Van Doren's personal life, but also hard-won business lessons learned over six turbulent decades in the shoe trade: the importance of deep-rooted values, of improvisation, of vision (and revision), and above all, of valuing people over profits. Refreshingly forthright and totally entertaining, Authentic is a business memoir by an American original.
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