Skateboarder Jimmy Gorecki has a new sneaker collaboration with Vans that’s inspired by LOVE Park

In 1999, a 17-year-old Jimmy Gorecki stood at the Municipal Services Building plaza with his skateboard positioned under his right foot. He had skated there for years, but this time felt momentous with so many onlookers.

He stared at a handrail several yards away before jogging a few paces to gain momentum. Gorecki hopped up the handrail, slid down the rail’s edge, and nailed the landing — a maneuver called a backside lipslide. As the crowd broke into cheers, Gorecki knew he wanted to be a skateboard pro.

He went on to snag national sponsorships from Aesthetics Skateboards, Elwood Clothing, Zoo York, and Billionaire Boys Club — a streetwear clothing and accessory brand created in 2003 by Pharrell Williams and Nigo. In 2013, he opened a Los Angeles-based streetwear brand, Jimmy Sweatpants, which LeBron James wears regularly.

Now, Jimmy Sweatpants is teaming up with Vans for a limited-edition shoe inspired by Philly’s skate culture. The shoe will debut Feb. 10 and be available exclusively at two Center City retailers, Lapstone & Hammer and Nocturnal. On Monday, a billboard promoting the collaboration was unveiled across from Lincoln Financial Field.

Gorecki grew up in Norristown. When he was a kid, his mother drove him daily to LOVE Park, where he would skate for hours. He took the train once he was old enough, and when he got his license, he drove himself. Gorecki said LOVE Park gave him his identity.

He’s not alone in that. Philly first became a skating hotbed in the ’60s, and with some 20 skate parks that emerged in the ’80s and ’90s, the city has long been a skateboarding hub, launching pros like Stevie Williams, Ricky Oyola, and Roger Browne. And LOVE Park was long their mecca, although skating was banned there by city officials in 1994 and again in 2000 with hefty fines.

“We called the [sneaker] collaboration ‘A Love Story,’ LOVE being the skate park at 15th and JFK, which is the scene that I grew up in and around,” said Gorecki, now 38. “We’ve seen so many big skateboarders that came out of that park, but I wanted to tell the story of the kids that have utilized that area. Skateboarding is a conduit that brings all of these men and women together.”

The Love Story shoe will be available in either black or white, with both versions featuring Vans’ signature checkerboard iconography and graffiti art by Philly artist Joseph Lees, who also skateboards.

“The style I chose was a chukka boot, which for me is one of the more obscure Vans silhouettes,” Gorecki said. “But it’s one of the shoes that I used to see growing up reading Thrasher Magazine, and I always have liked the way [chukka] looks with sweatpants, which is the basis of our brand.”

Like Gorecki, Lees started skateboarding as a child. He’d watched kids perform tricks at a gas station near his North Philadelphia home then begged his mother for a skateboard for Christmas, and he got one.

Years later he began to draw, mostly with markers and using calligraphy. And the images he drew were inspired by the graffiti he saw at skate parks around Philly. He’s known Gorecki since the early 2000s.

“It’s a dream of mine to be working on something like this,” Lees said. Combining his art and his love for skateboarding in a collaboration with Vans “is just beyond.”

Jake Mednik, a global manager for Vans, said Philadelphia has been a gatekeeper of skate culture on the East Coast and that the Jimmy Sweatpants and Vans collaboration pays respect to that history.

“When you look at the 1990s when you had Stevie Williams, Josh Kalis, all these top industry professionals living in Philly and really documenting their career in that city, a lot of times they were wearing Vans shoes,” Mednik said. “So the shoe really encompasses several pillars.”