Inventors: Paul J. Van Doren, Gordon C. Lee, Robert E. Diamond
Patent number: 4783909
Filing date: May 4, 1987
Issue date: Nov 15, 1988

Vans founder Paul Van Doren seemed to get off to a bad start. Dropping out of school in the eighth grade to hang out down at the local race track, Van Doren earned himself the nickname ‘Dutch the Clutch’ and for a buck he would give you odds on the race. This didn’t sit too well with his mother and she set him to work in Randy’s shoe factory where she also worked. Over the next twenty years he worked his way up the ranks and became the Executive Vice President. In 1966 Van Doren founded his own Van Doren Rubber Company and began producing shoes for different sports. By the mid 70’s young skaters had embraced Vans and the style had bled into the punk / hardcore scenes. Nevertheless overall sales were poor and in 1983 the company filed for bankruptcy.

By a stroke of luck Vans Slip-Ons started to gained international attention after Sean Penn wore his own pair in the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The movie featured Penn’s character ‘Spicoli’ getting wasted and hitting himself over the head with checkerboard Slip-Ons. Three years later sales had doubled from $20 million to $40 million as a result of Penn’s exposure and Vans paid back all creditors and came out of bankruptcy.

This patent from 1987 shows a shoe with a reversible heel counter so the shoe can be selectively used as either a slipper or a regular shoe. With nice diagrams of the classic Vans Authentic and Slip-On, this would make the shoe a slip-on-slipper.