Vans x Brice Gelot — Tepito, Santa Muerte

This limited-edition collaboration with Vans is built on the iconic Sk8-Hi silhouette, selected for its strong cultural connection to skateboarding and street identity. The design originates from a photograph captured in Mexico City, within Tepito—known as el barrio bravo, a neighborhood defined by intensity, informal markets, and a deep sense of resilience. It is also widely recognized as the birthplace of the first public altar dedicated to Santa Muerte, a folk figure venerated as a protector within communities living at the margins of society.

The translation of this environment into the Sk8-Hi takes shape through materials, tones, and graphic interventions that echo the atmosphere of the original image—layered, textured, and embedded with symbolic references. Each pair includes a silver Santa Muerte pendant, a studio security tag referencing exclusivity and the coded visual language of Tepito’s street economy, and a custom silver NSD51/50 pendant, positioning the shoe between object and artifact.

A red line runs across the design as a subtle reference to the darkroom process, evoking the glow of safelight conditions and the physical rituals of analog photography. It acts as a structural trace of the image-making process, reinforcing the idea that the shoe is not only inspired by a photograph, but constructed through photographic language itself.

Rather than a reinterpretation of a classic model, the collaboration becomes a document of place, belief, and visual culture—shaped by survival, devotion, and creative expression within a specific urban reality.

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