VANS OLD SKOOL 36 SOUVENIR LANDS IN NAVY AT EXTRA BUTTER

Bouclé tweed does not belong on a skate shoe canvas. Vans put it there anyway, spun into the Sidestripe of the Old Skool 36 LX Souvenir, and on Thursday, August 20, the navy colorway lands at Extra Butter's two New York stores and online, first come, first served.

This is not a passing nod to Chanel. It is the third release in a deliberate 2026 pack built entirely around one accessory, and the navy pair is the closest the Souvenir line has come yet to the bag that started it.

Greg Betty Built a Bag Into a Shoe

Greg Betty, a former Vans designer, built the Souvenir concept directly from Chanel's On the Pavements messenger bag, not from a skate archive reference. The navy pair carries a canvas and leather upper dyed in a deep midnight blue, with the Sidestripe logo rendered in a multicolor bouclé thread instead of the usual solid suede. The same thread runs along the tongue border, and the upper carries weathered, distressed accents meant to read as a well traveled piece rather than a fresh one.

Retail is 125 dollars, roughly 40 to 50 dollars above a standard Old Skool 36, and the premium is legible the moment you touch the stripe. Bouclé is a looped, textured yarn, the same family of material Chanel has used on its tweed jackets for decades, and stitching it onto a rubber toned canvas shoe is a genuinely odd material choice that Vans has now committed to three times over.

The build underneath the stripe is standard Old Skool 36 construction, a reinforced toe cap, a padded collar, and Vans' waffle rubber outsole, so the Souvenir treatment sits on top of a platform the brand has trusted since the silhouette's 2020 relaunch rather than a new mold. That matters for durability. Bouclé thread frays faster than solid suede under repeated wear, so Vans kept the parts that take the most abuse, the toe and the sole, in the same materials that have held up on the standard Old Skool 36 for years.

The Pins Come Off the Panel

Metal hardware and a set of removable, Vans themed enamel pins sit on the side panel, echoing the pin collecting culture that grew up around designer luggage and messenger bags rather than anything from skateboarding. The pins detach cleanly, which means the shoe doubles as a small display case. It is a detail built for someone who wants to swap the look without buying a second pair, and it is the strongest evidence that Vans is chasing a Chanel customer's habits, not a skater's.

Finally Offline covered the Extra Butter Air Jordan 3 True Blue release on July 18, which ran the identical first come, first served format across both Extra Butter locations and online at 230 dollars. That drop sold out at the Lower East Side and Long Island City doors within hours.

Extra Butter Ran This Drop Mechanic in July Too

This is the second time in five weeks that Extra Butter has used the exact same allocation strategy for a sneaker exclusive, no raffle, no draw, just line up or refresh the site at the same moment as everyone else. The retailer clearly trusts the format after the AJ3 True Blue result, and putting the Souvenir Navy through it signals Extra Butter expects real walk up demand for a 125 dollar Vans over a 230 dollar Jordan, which says something about how far the Souvenir story has traveled since June.

Three Colorways In, the Formula Holds

Vans has now run the Souvenir pack on a near monthly clock. Asphalt opened the series on June 25, Faded Black and Oatmeal followed together on July 23, and Navy closes out the summer run on August 20. Each colorway has kept the same bouclé stripe, the same pin set, and the same 125 dollar price, which means Vans built a platform rather than a one off collaboration. Finally Offline also tracked Parra's separate reimagining of the Old Skool this year, a reminder that 2026 is the year Vans let its most familiar silhouette get treated like a canvas for outside ideas instead of a fixed classic.

The Souvenir line also sits in a specific gap in the Vans lineup. OTW by Vans handles the brand's premium collaboration tier, usually built around outside partners and materials like the Vibram outsoles on the Authentic 44. Souvenir is different. It is entirely in house, entirely Greg Betty's design, and priced 100 dollars under what an OTW collaboration typically runs. Vans built a mid tier premium lane with the Souvenir pack, cheaper than a collab, more expensive than the base line, and it has now proven the format can hold for three straight colorways without a discount.

Buy it if the bouclé stripe and the removable pins read as craft to you and not gimmick, because at 125 dollars this is priced like a premium Vans, not a limited collab markup. Skip it if you already own Faded Black or Oatmeal, since the construction and price are identical and only the palette changes. Extra Butter's two doors and extrabutterny.com are the confirmed stockists for Thursday, and the AJ3 result suggests this one moves fast in person.