VANS by POLIMI DESIGN SYSTEM

The first two weeks of FLOW, the project that started on September 25th and will last until the end of the year, has just ended. The project born thanks to the collaboration between the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano and VANS.

Over the past 14 days the event has filled the creative Customs Lab in the VANS Store in Milan in Corso Buenos Aires. During the weekends there was a series of workshops guided and organised by the designers who created the project, and during the week there was a fixed costuming station where various garments were customised and shared.

In fact, thanks to FLOW, it’s possible to customize VANS shoes, t-shirts and sweatshirts according to one’s style and personality, with three different kits that can give everyone the opportunity to show their flow on the garments in a simple and always different way, even at home.

The project concludes an initiative that began in May and involved selected students from all the Bachelor and Master degree courses of the School of Design of the Politecnico of Milan in a month-long workshop, part of the Passion in Action program of the Politecnico.

Divided into multidisciplinary groups, the students, future designers, collaborated on the creation of unique and original concepts to be presented to VANS in order to create a product kit/system, which would facilitate and democratize the customization of the brand’s products as well as the design of an in-store experience, where the kit would be presented and made to try on to the public. At the end of the month of work, a mixed jury composed of professors from the Politecnico of Milan and the VANS EMEA marketing team selected four winning projects.

From June and for the following three months, the students of the four winning projects gave life to FLOW, a unique and multidisciplinary experience that combined the different fields of design project, namely industrial product design, interior design, communication design and fashion design. Starting from the idea that every VANS shoe, t-shirt or sweatshirt is unique, as well as the person who wears it, integrating the best ideas that emerged in the workshop, the final concept was developed to interpret and represent the uniqueness and the continuous evolution of each identity through an accessible customization system. If every personality is not static but rich in colors and nuances, VANS garments must be too, and with them the wearer must be able to express himself in the most fluid and iconic way possible.