We know Amsterdam for its canals, its bicycles, and those small bordeaux street bollards that dot the city’s pavements like a silent punctuation. They are called Amsterdammertjes, and they are so iconic that they became the starting point of the new capsule collection that Vans developed together with Ben G and Pop Trading Company to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Dutch skate shop.
The collaboration unfolds across two classic Vans silhouettes. The Era, which this year celebrates its own fiftieth anniversary, is reinterpreted with a fuzzy suede upper in the same bordeaux colorway as the Amsterdammertjes, and a sole embossed with the “XXX” logo found on every bollard. The Sk8-Hi brings the collection’s graphics onto its canvas upper, with custom insoles and exclusive packaging conceived as an integral part of the project. On both models, co-branded Ben G and Pop details on the heel and sole complete a release that knows exactly where it comes from.
Bringing the collection’s world to life is an animated film by Picnic Studio: a carefree skater crosses Amsterdam without a fixed destination, through alleyways and wrong turns, until he lands at the Vans x Ben G x Pop pop-up store where a pair of Era is waiting for him. A short film that works as a visual manifesto for the collaboration, capturing that specific quality of the city — chaotic, playful, never entirely predictable — that the project seeks to translate into the form of a shoe.
The capsule is available from today, May 22, on poptradingcompany.com and at selected retailers. The Sk8-Hi is available exclusively at Pop and Ben G stores.
