VF Corp. President and CEO Bracken Darrell told analysts on a recent conference call that the company’s Vans brand business was down 9 percent year-over-year (y/y) on a global constant-currency (CC) basis in the fiscal first quarter ended June 27 and is expected to see a similar trend in the fiscal second quarter.

In reported terms, the Vans brand was down 8 percent y/y to $459.8 million in the second quarter, with continued growth in the Americas direct-to-consumer (DTC) business said to be more than offset by Wholesale declines.

  • In the Americas, Vans dipped 3 percent y/y in reported terms and declined 4 percent y/y in CC terms in the fiscal first quarter. Americas DTC was said to be up again in the fiscal quarter.
  • EMEA revenues were down 15 percent y/y in reported terms and and down 17 percent y/y in CC terms for the quarter.
  • APAC revenues were down 14 percent y/y in reported terms in Q1 and down 15 percent y/y in CC terms for the period.
  • Vans saw global growth in both the Authentic and Slip-On franchises.
  • Newness generating heat with strong sell-through across Pearlized, Souvenir and Travis Barker drops in the quarter.
  • Positive consumer search trends across key markets.

* * * * *

How Did Vans Get Here? What Led the Brand to This Point?
(or, in the immortal words of King Théoden in The Two Towers: “How did it come to this?”)

It has clearly been an up and down adventure for the Vans brand over the last seven years. It was clearly not the expected path for the brand when VF Corp. in September 2018 forecast 10 percent to 12 percent compounded annual rate (CAGR) over the following five-year span to reach $5 billion in sales by 2023.

Sales had reportedly posted CAGR of 17 percent from 2004 when the Vans brand was acquired up to that point in 2018, but many forget much of that growth came easy as VF went to work on the operations side of the business after rescuing the brand from the founding family, and also saw considerable upside by buying back the global business from a ragtag group of worldwide brand distributors that had their own particular definition of the Vans brand and product for their markets.

“Vans is moving into its rightful place as the number three global sport lifestyle brand by being clear about who we are and who we are not,” said Doug Palladini, Vans’ global brand president at the time. “By forsaking ubiquity and instead focusing on Vans’ brand pillars of art, music, action sports and street culture, we continue to generate deep and meaningful consumer connectivity that is growing the Vans Family worldwide.”

And it appeared to be working.

Things were still good the following year as global sales jumped 24 percent in fiscal 2019 as the Americas delivered 30 percent y/y growth leading into the Covid years.

The Covid Years
For fiscal 2020, the brand was able to maintain double-digit growth for the year, with sales increasing 10 percent to $3.5 billion, but with Asia Pacific as the leading growth region for the fiscal year.

Fiscal 2021 saw APAC was the only region with a Vans increase for the year even as overall global sales fell 15 percent y/y.  Fourth quarter sales at Vans were down 7 percent on a reported basis and down 6 percent on a currency-neutral basis. On a currency-neutral basis, fiscal Q4 sales were down 7 percent in the Americas, down 2 percent in EMEA, and off 5 percent in APAC in fiscal Q4 2020 ended March 2021. Vans’ sales were down 16 percent in constant-currency terms in the 2021 fiscal year. Vans’ sales were up 10 percent in the fourth quarter against year-ago pandemic-depressed sales, but the recovery was much softer than VF’s other brands.

Vans was VF’s largest brand at the time.

Specifically addressing concerns about Vans’ growth prospects, then VF CEO Steve Rendle said Vans, during the pandemic, had been impacted by the disruption caused by supply chain delays, the outsized impact of store closures given the brand’s large store base and the cumulative impact of inventory and marketing investment constraints. Rendle said, “These issues are all short term and episodic, which has no impact on the long-term runway for this brand.” He cited three near-term catalysts expected to reaccelerate demand to return Vans to the low double-digit growth rate goal initially laid out in 2019 as part of VF’s five-year growth plan.

First, he said, Vans’ stores drive “deep connectivity” with fans of the brand and higher loyalty member enrollment, greater purchase frequency and higher average order value. “Our return to in-store shopping will restore this advantage in growing the Vans’ community while driving a higher annual spend per consumer,” the former CEO said.

Second, the return to normal social usage occasions is expected to accelerate purchases from depressed levels Vans experienced during the pandemic. Rendle elaborated, “This is not just to return to in-person schooling for younger consumers; this is a return to seeing family and friends, dining out, attending concerts and sporting events, and traveling. We know Vans has remained top of mind for its core consumers who are ready to re-engage with the brand as they return to a normal cadence of lifestyle activities.”

Finally, beginning in June 2021, Vans was to initiate a globally coordinated weekly-drop cadence that “marries product and experiential demand creation to drive energy, excitement and brand heat.” The former VF CEO said a key learning from that past year had been the importance of “flowing new product and associated storytelling to deepen engagement with existing consumers and attract new consumers to the brand.”

The company forecast that Vans would generate between 26 percent and 28 percent growth year-over-year in fiscal 2022, representing a 7 percent to 9 percent increase relative to prior peak revenue for the brand.

Fiscal 2022 did see a short-term return to growth, with strong double-digit growth in the Americas and EMEA pushing global sales volume to $4.2 billion, but that would be the last fiscal year of global growth.

The Vans Sales Trend –  FY 2019 through Q1 2026

 

Fiscal 2023 closed out with a total of $3.7 billion in revenue on a 12 percent (-8 percent CC) y/y sales decline, falling well short of the $5 billion target established five years earlier. Vans revenues were down in Q4, as management expected, declining 14 percent (-12 percent CC), but management said they saw “encouraging green shoots from new product launches” and “increased focus on maximizing existing product platforms.”

VF Corp. Interim President and CEO Benno Dorer said at the time the two emerging product lines of focus, UltraRange and MTE, were up 51 percent and 34 percent, respectively, for the period.  “We are just scratching the surface on these,” Dorer suggested. “We also demonstrated that we can energize Vans’ fan base when we have meaningful product news.”

Bracken Darrell joined VF Corporation as its president and CEO in June 2023.

Fiscal 2024 sales trends worsened for Vans, with sales falling 24 percent – double the 2023 trend – and falling to $2.8 billion in sales.

Fiscal 2025 sales fell 16 percent (-15 percent c-n) to $2.3 billion. The drop marked its third year of declines with sales on a currency-neutral basis down 14 percent in fiscal 2024 and 8 percent in fiscal 2023. Vans sales fell 20 percent on a currency-neutral (c-n) basis in the fiscal 2025 fourth quarter.  The decline was reportedly due to steps to rationalize inventories and distribution in addition to ongoing weakness in the brand’s DTC channels and icon styles.

The sharp decline in the Q4 period ended March 31, 2025 marked a retreat from an improved sequential trend in prior quarters that year when Vans sales declined 8 percent c-n in the fiscal third quarter, 11 percent c-n in the second quarter, and 21 percent c-n in the company’s fiscal first quarter. Worse, the 20 percent decline in Q4 came on top of a sharp 27 percent c-n decrease in the year-ago fourth quarter.

Fiscal 2026 saw the eyes of Wall Street remained hyper-fixated on any perceived shortcomings at the Vans brand, which saw a strong fourth quarter performance – and clear progress – in the Americas go under-appreciated as strong direct-to-consumer (DTC) momentum in the region was overshadowed by continued weakness in the brand’s Wholesale channel and across its International regions. Vans declined 5 percent CC in Q4 – but delivered a 5 percent increase in the Americas – and posted an 11 percent decline for the full fiscal year to $2.1 billion.

Vans revenue was forecast to decline in the mid-single digits in fiscal 2027.

The Path Ahead Has Already Started
Darrell reminded conference call participants this week that the company began signaling a few quarters ago that the business would turn around first in the DTC business, and then Wholesale.

“And that’s exactly what continues to happen,” he stated. “We expected to be a little bit better in Q1 than we were, but this quarter doesn’t at all change our indication of what we will see for the full year.”

Darrell and the VF Corp. team decided to provide more insight into that DTC business for this past quarter to the call participants, focusing on the U.S. where half of the business is currently generated. He said the same strategy applies globally.

“Remember we have more flexibility in introducing new products into our DTC channels than we do in Wholesale,” he noted. He said e-commerce is where they are starting to see accelerated growth and mentioned almost 60 percent of the brand’s comp stores are now “flat to growing” in the first quarter.

“There are stubborn stores we continue to work on, but you can see that our Ecom and the majority of our fleet is now positive in the U.S.,” he said.

So what’s going to change between first half of fiscal 27 into the second half of fiscal 27 at Vans?

Darrell suggested that, in addition to the DTC business improvement in both e-commerce and brick & mortar, the Wholesale business is expected to “be a lot better around the world.”

“We are confident because we have much better visibility into our Wholesale partners’ plans,” the CEO explained. “This is one of the things that gives me the confidence to commit to a better second half for Vans. In fact, for Vans as a whole, while the first half revenue will be down about 9 percent vs. last year, we expect the second half to be down 2 percent or better vs. last year.”

Darrell said there have been “many green shoots” in the last few months. DTC in the Americas was one as it continues to grow, but he also called out more new products that are “generating energy, excitement, engagement and sell out.”

Unfortunately, he pointed to “the press and social media analysts” as the sources for that confidence as they have “published many headlines like ‘Vans’ Hot Streak Is Only Getting Hotter’ and ‘Vans really might just grab footwear brand of the year’ as the basis of his statement. He said the brand is even “inspiring luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Dior and Miu Miu as they see the energy move to Vans silhouettes.”

Thankfully, Darrell does realize that the people that need to be impressed enough to vote with their feet and highlighted the brand energy around the sophomore effort with the reimagined Vans Warped Tour this year. He said they  expect to have almost 600,000 attendees across its six venues, making the event one of the Top 10 largest North American music festivals in 2026.  “And when you go, you see two out of every three people wearing Vans!,” he said excitedly.

“Our focus on innovation is driving consumer demand,” Darrell stated.” We continue to reinvigorate the original icons. Authentic had another double-digit quarter. Slip-ons grew. Old Skool continues to benefit from the Pearlized, distressed, and collabs like Travis Barker all resonating and achieving a very high sell-through. The latest example, the Souvenir Asphalt collection, sold out in 30 minutes.”

He said the Vans team is also putting out powerful new silhouettes, too (including loafers and more).

“One of the things we are under-leveraging is some of this incredible energy,” the CEO said. “We can do a better job having sufficient volumes of these hot new styles of icons and entirely new silhouettes so we can better capitalize on the demand. We’re working on that. But overall, our energy strategy in our DTC channels is starting to work and we’re going to keep going and build on this. Wholesalers will be bringing in more new product as we approach the holiday and spring seasons. We continue to be very optimistic on Vans.”

2027 Outlook
VF Corp. expects to see Vans’ revenue trends to improve relative to the last fiscal year and come in at down mid-single digits for the year.

VF COO and soon-to-be CFO Abhishek Dalmia reiterated Darrell’s expectations for “better trends in the second half” and said they expect revenue to be down 2 percent or better for Q3 and Q4 combined.

Vans Q2 performance is expected to be similar to Q1 of down 9 percent. Within this number, Americas DTC will continue to grow as previously indicated in May, with continued improvement in DTC for other regions.

Vans is still expected to deliver a mid-single-digit decline for the full fiscal year.

Images courtesy Vans and VF Corporation; bar graph courtesy Statista