Four High Tech Studio Arts Students Comprise One of Ten Finalist Teams in Vans Custom Culture Sneaker Design Contest

(Cypress, CA—May 1, 2017) A team of High Tech Studio Arts students has entered the Vans Custom Culture Sneaker Design Competition and has been selected as one of ten finalists in the Northeast Region Contest, announced Dr. Joseph Giammarella, Principal of High Tech High School.

If Jersey City residents Mously Lo and Pauline Bertholon, Sophia Velasquez of Bayonne, and Union City resident Kaitlin Juarez, the High Tech team members, win the Northeast Region Contest by receiving the most votes, they will be flown to Southern California to compete against four other regional finalists.

From March 1st through April 10th, Custom Culture, a national high school customization competition, consists of teams of students using blank Vans shoes to customize around specific themes.  Once a team completes its designs, it goes through a voting process from April 26ththrough May 10th to narrow down Custom Culture’s top fifty entries.  Then, the selected team at a school needs to garner votes from the public to qualify for Custom Culture’s Top Five on May 5th.  Those last teams in the Top Five, notified by May 11th, go on to compete in the Final Event, which takes place in Los Angeles from June 5th-June 8th, for the Grand Prize of $50,000.

Created to inspire and empower high school students, Vans Custom Culture embraces student creativity through art and design, bringing attention to the reality of diminishing arts education budgets. 

(from left to right: Sophia Velasquez, Mously Lo, Kaitlin Juarez, and Pauline Bertholon)




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