The Skate Shoe and the Work Boot Win Over America's Teenagers

Vans, the California label behind the waffle-soled sneaker, is drawing more visitors both to its website and through its shop doors, and the readings keep pointing the right way. The crowd doing the most of that walking in is teenage boys, which for a skate brand is precisely the audience you would want to see first. Its sibling Timberland is writing a parallel story of its own, finding its footing with teenagers from more affluent households, where the yellow boot evidently still carries the room. Two silhouettes that have anchored American high school hallways for decades, then, are being re-adopted by the generation that gets to decide what counts as classic next.

With reporting from Footwear News.