Vans announces nostalgia-heavy Spongebob Squarepants collection: release date and how to buy
![The Spongebob Squarepants collection from Vans features five items. (Vans)](https://www.thepinknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/db24b079-6aab-4ed3-9c00-5666a639b9be-25_fa21_classics_spongebob_sandyliang_collection_lineup_0080.jpg?w=792&h=416&crop=1)
The Spongebob Squarepants collection from Vans features five items. (Vans)
Vans is launching a Spongebob Squarepants collection, and we’re ready for Bikini Bottom Fashion Week.
The upcoming line, due to be released on 4 June, sees Vans team up with Spongebob superfan and designer Sandy Liang.
She’s previously collaborated with Nickelodeon for a special release T-shirt, but this time she’s created a five-piece capsule collection with Vans.
The Spongebob x Vans line features a bucket hat, T-shirt, hoodie, and two pairs of reimagined Vans Sk8-Hi 38 DX shoes.
Discussing the collection with Teen Vogue, Liang said: “I wanted to refer back to Bikini Bottom whenever possible, but also while bringing the characters more into the real world, as in my version of the Lower East Side.
“I didn’t want any of the outfits to feel too costumey and it was important that each of their outfits could be something I could see translated into a real garment.”
The collection features two pairs of hi-top trainers which Liang says are “a collage of different textiles and prints I was inspired by.”
She notes that they’re a combination of the animated show and New York City as the “plaid is taken from the Chinatown checkered laundry storage totes, and the other prints were taken from the intro title backgrounds of different Spongebob episodes”.
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Other items in the collection include a beige bucket hat featuring Patrick Star and a hoody and T-shirt with prints of Spongebob, Patrick, Sandy and Squidward.
Last year Twitter users celebrated Spongebob’s coming out party after Nickelodeon featured the yellow square in a Pride post.
He was included alongside canonically queer characters Schwoz Schwartz from Henry Danger and Korra from Avatar: The Last Airbender spin-off Legends of Korra in the post.
It came after years of speculation around Spongebob’s sexuality with show creator, Stephen Hillenburg saying he considers the sponge to be asexual in the 2000s.
This upcoming collection is due to be released on 4 June and will be available via the Vans website.
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