Antonio in front of the 18 East store and studio

Village Psychic
So, I’m sure you’ve explained your background many, many times, but for those new to the conversation, can you explain a little about who you are?

Antonio Ciongoli

I'm happy to – I've been making clothes for about sixteen years. I designed at Ralph Lauren for a while, then with a menswear designer named Michael Bastian, who’s now the creative director at Brooks Brothers. After that, I launched my own brand focused on tailoring that was made in Italy and ran that for about five years. It’s had a wide mix of influences, but the jump-off and primary inspiration has always been skateboarding. Whether people who are familiar with my work know it or not, that has always been the starting point. If you go back and look closely, even just from a color perspective, you’ll see iconic skate footwear colorways referenced, as well as Workshop, Habitat, Droors, and Alphanumeric. Skateboarding made me pay attention to how things look and the things that were the reason I fell in love with skateboarding have always been the source material. Even when I was making suits – and it didn't really make sense to do this – we took with Gino Iannucci to Naples to model a lookbook and had Eli Reed in one of our New York Fashion Week presentations.

VP

So what pushed you to finally take the leap and start 18 East?

AC

I launched my previous brand for a larger Italian tailoring company with the directive that the product I made should to tie back to them. 18 East was an opportunity to make something deeply personal from scratch. It’s the first time that I felt comfortable directly and actively incorporating skating into the presentation of my product. There's three main reference points that I think about when putting a collection together – classic, outdoor and skate. That’s just from me growing up in Vermont skating, hiking and camping with a father and brothers that wore Brooks Brothers and L.L. Bean everyday. I think the product feels the best when it comes from a genuine place, and those are my life experiences.

There are lots of brands that have elements of each of our references, but what sets 18 East apart is craft. I've become obsessed with process over the past 15 years after traveling all over to make clothes. In 2016, I started visiting India to learn more about their handcraft traditions and spent two weeks studying hand block printing in Bagru, a small village outside of Jaipur. Block printing is just one example of Indian craftspeople genuinely making things by hand without machinery. They carve designs into rosewood blocks with a hammer and chisel and then lay the color down, one repeat at a time. Every color is a different block. The first time I watched that process, it changed my whole perspective on how I could make things. Like, “What's the handmade version of the cargo that I want to skate in? What's the organic version of the water repellent shell that I want to take camping, what’s the naturally dyed version of that oxford shirt that my father wore?”

VP

Where do you think drive comes from? Do you think that's tied to skating, the drive to make things in an authentic way?

AC

I probably wouldn't be making clothes if I never started skating.

VP
You’ve been given the opportunity to have a shoe made with your name on it. Why did you end up making a Half Cab?

AC

This one means a lot to me because Vans and the Half Cab played a key role in how I was introduced to skateboarding in general. When I was 11 years old, I was sitting outside my house, when this local skater named Packy McGurn burned into my driveway in cargo shorts and Half Cabs. He had come over to work on a school project with my sister – who was five years older than me – and he had just gotten the old circle Cab dragon logo tattooed on his calf about a half hour prior. I sat with them as they worked and Packy seemed much more interested in making me laugh than the project. As an 11 year old, I remember thinking “Yo, this guy is the coolest human being I’ve ever met.” When they were done he offered to let me try his board. Up until that point I had never even thought about skating, but the very next day I went downtown to the local skate shop, The B-Side, where Packy worked, and he picked out my whole first setup for me.

VP

So what did you have for your first setup?

AC

A Ben Pappas Platinum deck with Indys. I don't remember the wheels. It’s kind of a nuts first setup looking back now.

VP

Other than that initial exposure to the logo, what’s been your connection with Half Cabs?

AC

What’s most interesting to me about the Half Cab is that it was an anomaly in the Vans assortment. The majority Vans models traditionally catered to the big rail/gap centric skater who wore tighter fits or someone with that classic California surf style. The Half Cab, with its design nods to the Jordan 1 and its larger, padded tongue, was the first Vans silhouette that spoke to city-based ledge and plaza skaters. Nearly all of my favorite skaters growing up ran them. Most memorably, Mike Carroll, Keenan, Stevie, Kalis. I remember seeing that photo of Stevie at the Bay Blocks doing a nollie back tail with them barely laced and tongues all the way out. That one really made me feel something. I wanted my skating to look like that. As the 90’s progressed and a lot of skaters I mentioned moved on to other companies that produced bigger, more technical models, I did too. Footage with bigger shoes and baggier fits still tends to be what I like watching the most, but as I've gotten older, I’ve found that I just can’t skate at the level I want in those bulkier shoes. So about four years ago, I switched back to the Core Classic Half Cab and haven’t really skated anything else since.

VP

Shoes in general have gone through transformations in how they look and how they’re made since back in the day – is there anything from past versions of the Half Cab that you’re trying to resurrect?

AC

The original version that was made in California is, to me, the perfect skate shoe. It’s a low profile but still fresh. The classic Vans vulc sole gives you optimal board feel, but a more padded tongue (with no internal tongue straps) and collar allow it to look great if laced loose. It also had a narrower width top down and an extra toe cap for added durability. When Vans approached us to do something together, I told them that I wanted to make that shoe. It was really, really hard to get there because that’s just not how the more contemporary versions are made. So we set out to cobble together all the right details for the various different iterations that they currently run.

Details matter: specificity on the sole used was definitely not taken lightly

VP

It’s impressive that you’re so schooled in the history of the shoe, but then again, you were there for it all. Was there an insole that you saw that was closest to what you wanted?

AC
The Core Classic is the closest sole-wise. Like the original, it’s insole is thin and not removable which is great for board feel, at first. Unfortunately, the cushioning collapses after about a week, so if you land primo there is zero protection. The Skate and Pro versions address this with a thick UltraCush insole, but that kind of negates the fact that the shoe is vulcanized.

VP

How did you deal with that?

AC
At the suggestion of Rian Pozzebon, the Vans designer we worked with on this project, we made the 18 East version using the same construction as the Core Classic, but with different materials. We made the non-removable insole out of UltraCush, so you get substantial prolonged support and cushioning while still maintaining the boardfeel.

VP

What challenges did you encounter in pushing for such a specific vision?

AC

Vans is a huge company, with a ton of departments, and each one has their own version of that shoe. They all do something that's almost like what it used to be, but not exactly. We tried to cherry pick the right details from each but the response was “What you're asking for seems simple, but it’s not. That shoe is the property of a different department. We can’t really touch it.” It never occurred to me that there was silhouette ownership like that in one company, with separate teams, separate lines of production, all protective of their own product. I just thought it was all Vans. That said, our designer Rian saw what we were trying to do and really dug in for us. It took over 2 years to dial these in, but we nailed it. The 18 East Half Cab is the closest you can get to skating what Carroll was skating at EMB. And it’s exclusively ours.

VP

Other than the shoe’s construction, how does your brand come through in the final product?

AC

Function came first with most of what we changed being “under the hood.” So much work went into getting the silhouette right that our main focus became making three highly wearable colorways that any skater, whether they know us or not, would be psyched to skate. That said, there are a few subtle touches that quietly tie them back to us. The usual woven “Half Cab” patch on the side was swapped for one made from indigo suede, as natural indigo is a key element of our collection and integral to traditional Indian manufacturing. The suede panel behind that label is debossed with an intricate textile pattern that comes from the handwoven garment we are most known for - our Gorecki cargo pant. Jimmy Gorecki is actually the person that linked us with Vans in the first place so we thought that was a nice, low-key tribute. The less abrasion-prone panels below that are cotton ripstop, because that’s the fabric I’ve probably skated in most throughout my life. We flipped the OG Van Doren typeface to say EAST and added that on a small loop label just below the main tongue label and ran a dedication to the people that initially sparked me on skating on the back side of the tongue.

VP

What are the different colorways you’re releasing?

AC

The first colorway is a mix of black and navy - a nod to the Core Classic version which was only available in those two colors for many years. I believe they stopped making them about two years ago and I’ve been hunting all over, buying any 10.5s and 11s I can find in either color. The idea of smashing those two colorways into one was the blueprint for the other two. When putting a color palette together, I like to think of black as the darkest shade of navy, so I thought running two other colorways with mixed tonal paneling could be good. I always wanted a pair off-whitesHalf Cabs so that was an obvious second, and the browns rounded it all out. Each one has a black tongue with natural top stitching throughout and a matte white outsole with a tonal foxing stripe, just like the OGs.

VP

Tell us about the dedications on the inside tongue label and how that has affected the shoes’ rollout.

AC

This project is basically a loveletter to how I grew up and people, places and experiences that shaped me in Vermont. The main label on the back of the tongue says “Dedicated to Packy, A Dog, and 145 Cherry.” As I mentioned, Packy was the person that put my first board in my hand. 145 Cherry was the address of The B-Side, the skateshop where he did it. Packy later helped me get a job there and that’s where I met Andy “A-Dog” Williams. Andy was like a big brother to me, as well as most of the younger skaters in our community. He put me onto so much that shaped my taste growing up. He was an incredible skater, but was also an amazing artist and DJ, with talents that transcended our subculture and made him a larger than life figure in Vermont. Andy passed from Leukemia 10 years ago and every summer since, the city of Burlington has recognized a holiday in his honor called A-Dog Day. It’s a celebration of everything that he loved putting us onto: skateboarding, art and music. With the shoes being dedicated to Andy, we knew they needed to head up to Vermont with us for the event’s 10 year anniversary.

We asked our friend Liam O’Neill (Crusty Cuts) - an incredible designer and DJ - to make us an A-Dog-style mixtape that we could include with the shoes. We ran 100 cassettes (orange in tribute to Photosynthesis) and they’ll be inserted into the first 100 pairs we sell. While we were up there we also hosted a basement show that would pay homage to Andy and the diverse music scene that is thriving in the city today due to his groundwork. Liam opened with a set that A-Dog would have been really hyped on and then two great VT hardcore bands shut it down. Headlining was Gone Wrong, a Burlington band comprised of some of my favorite skaters right now. We also organized a large session at the Courthouse, Burlington’s most iconic plaza and skate spot, in Andy’s honor.

VP

What else should readers know about the scene in Burlington?

AC

That it’s extremely underrated, with a ton of really good, wide-open spots. Our team has been heading up every summer for the last few years and it’s been very inspiring to see the next generation of Vermont skaters like the Jonah Razafy, Levi, Axel and Ivan Glenney, Myles, and Russell Looby liberate a lot of the classic spots that have been skatestopped and approach them in ways we never would have dreamt of.

VP

What does all this mean to you personally?

AC

At the baseline, these shoes go on the shelf in my office. I was able to put the names of people that turned me onto skating - which has been the most important thing in my life outside of family - onto a shoe that we all love.

That’s kind of an unfathomable achievement. So who knows what will come from that. I will say though, for what we went through to get the silhouette right, I would love for us to be able to continue to carry these in colors. Hopefully these move quickly and I can go back to Vans and be able to say “We already have two more colorways ready - let’s run it!” I would love to have our Half Cabs in the store all the time.

VP

Do you think the release of your Half Cab will give more visibility to what you're doing among skaters?

AC

I hope so. We definitely have customers that skate, but I think - and I was like this too when I was younger - some of them look at our price tag and immediately rule us out, not knowing what goes into our product. I understand that $155 for a pair of pants is expensive and that a lot of skaters don’t have the money for that, but I always try to have that conversation and explain how our pieces are made. When you understand the handmade component of it, it’s actually a really good value. We deliberately don't wholesale, so that we don't have to build wholesale margin into our product. The reality is that if you look at our collection, there are pieces on par quality-wise with some of the most well-made product in the world, from Japanese brands like Visvim and Kapital. We offer those pieces at a quarter of the price. That is quite literally because we don't wholesale, we don't sell to other stores because we are trying to pass that savings on to the customer and make handmade, quality product as affordable as possible.

VP

How do you feel about where 18 East fits into the bigger world of brands that tie-in skating?

AC

We're priced in a similar range to Stussy, Supreme and Palace, but a lot of our product is made by hand. When I say that, I mean that a lot of our fabric is woven on shuttle loom that operates without electricity. Watching it happen is a bit like seeing someone play the piano – a master weaver sits at this big wooden machine, throwing a shuttle of weft yarns back and forth while he steps on different pedals raising and lowering the warp yarns to create different patterns. Most of our embroideries are by someone with a needle and thread, sitting in their living room. It’s just an entirely different, more human way of making product.

Some skaters buy what we make, and a lot of people that don't skate do too. The fact that it's made by us isn't instinctually the thing that draws them here, most of our customers aren't buying stuff because of the brand, they're more interested m buying a great pair of pants or a great jacket.

VP

Do you consider word of mouth the main type of publicity that you get for what you make?

AC

It's the only way I know how to do what we do. We’re still small and don't have the budgets for large spends on digital advertising or crazy marketing stunts. Word of mouth is the opportunity, so we strive to make the product speak for itself.

18 East Has Reinvented the Half Cab