Matt Varga Piet Parra, though now known in sneakerdom as an established collaborator for some of the skate world’s biggest brands, remains an artist at his core. It’s no shock then that following the wide release of his latest with Vans under their OTW initiative, a second, alternate version of the shoe trickled out to social media feeds, maintaining his signature wavy aesthetic and color palette yet dipping into a cooler end of his spectrum. After all, doesn’t any great piece have plenty of scrapped or beta versions along the way?
Parra has managed to subvert at least our expectations once again, with little to no fanfare preceding this update. Indeed, London storefront Slam City Skates recently joined the network of authorized By Parra retailers, and to commemorate that newswire update, the artist handed down a third version of his Old Skool 36. This one lands as far more simplified, coating the suede upper entirely in pink while pinning a one-note vulcanized black rubber cup sole below it. More predictable tones appear with a red collar and Vans tag just underneath the lace stay, similarly applying to the custom co-brand on the tongue.
In official comms, Slam City Skates reports this as an exclusive to their banner, first dropping off a batch via their online storefront with an in-store drop to follow on March 11th. At the time of this writing, very select sizes of this Parra x Vans Old Skool 36 are still up for grabs on their site. As you weigh tariffs and squeezing into smaller sizes, check out studio shots of this colorway below.
