Goes without saying, but getting your name blasted on a board or boot is one of the biggest milestones in snowboarding. It’s the kind of thing you dream about when you’re flow or am, and while most people never attain it, you can only hope that someday your name might actually end up on something you ride every day.
Vans has a long history of giving that opportunity to riders who’ve truly made their mark — from Jamie Lynn to Geoff Rowley, Dustin Dollin to Danny Kass. Over the years, that list’s gotten way longer, with names like Gilbert Crockett, Parker Szumowski, and Jill Perkins gracing the sidepanels of your checkered feet too.
Now it’s 2025, and two new names just joined that crew: Rene Rinnekangas and Mia Brookes. You already know what they’re about… they’ve both been your Torment Snow Globes ROTY (with Rene sweeping everything else too), so it makes perfect sense that Vans gave them the keys to design their own pro model boots.
Scroll below to see what they came up with, and hear a little bit about what inspired the design…
Where do you draw inspiration from and what inspired you to design your boot this way?
Rene: When we started, the Vans design team had a great idea of the colors, and it worked really well with my idea of just black leather boots with gold logos and details. Also, I was checking some photos of older Vans boots and found that they used that logo on the toes of some OG models, so that inspiration comes from there.
For the drawings, I wanted to have some story behind the design and use something that means a lot to me. I ended up using an old drawing from my grandmother. A drawing/design from 1956. She was a big part of me and my brother's snowboarding growing up, and I've used some inspiration from her before on a Rome board graphic as well.
Where do you draw inspiration from and what inspired you to design your boot this way?
Mia: I mainly drew inspiration from 90s style, mostly Nu metal bands and skate style. If I'm being really specific, I drew a lot of inspiration (basically all of it) from Limp Bizkit and Fred Durst, so hyped on how it turned out.
