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Before the sneaker as we know it today existed, there was the canvas sneaker.
Its earliest iteration can be traced back to the 1870s, when Scottish inventor John Boyd Dunlop—best known for patenting the pneumatic tire—made good on his familiarity with rubber to design a low-top canvas shoe with a vulcanized rubber sole. Dubbed “Plimsolls” by the British public, they were instrumental in forging an entirely new category of sporting footwear.
This burgeoning category received a further boost when one Paul Sperry slipped on the deck of his schooner, inspiring the American sailor to look for an alternate form of traction. His solution was to slice a pattern into the rubber soles of his sailing shoes, and in 1937 he’d earned himself a pattern and brought the “Top-Sider” to market, where it has remained an icon since.
The rubber-soled canvas shoe, popularly referred to as a “CVO”—circular vamp oxford—went from an accessory to aristocratic sporting pursuits to footwear for the masses in 1939, when the style became U.S. Navy standard issue. From there, it became an expected feature of gym classes everywhere, the uniform of the American teenager, and the recognizable signature of one Mister Rogers.
At once simply practical and deeply nostalgic, the canvas sneaker remains a summertime staple today, with worthy editions available from SeaVees, Sperry, Morjas and more makers below.
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Visvim Skagway Canvas Sneakers
Image Credit: Visvim -
Mr P. Classic Plimsoll Canvas Sneakers
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SeaVees Men’s Founders Edition Yacht Shoe
Image Credit: SeaVees SeaVees, which was founded in 1964 by the tire manufacturer BF Goodrich before vanishing for more than 30 years until its revival in 2008, has linked back up with its original owner to launch the Founders Edition Yacht Shoe. Featuring a washed cotton canvas upper, the sneaker is an exact recreation of the SeaVees of the 1960s, except for an insole made from recycled tire rubber and EVA.
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Sperry x Todd Snyder x Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood CVO Sneaker
Image Credit: Sperry x Todd Snyder There is perhaps no more famous canvas sneaker than Sperry’s CVO (circular vamp oxford), and no more famous canvas sneaker-wearer than Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers). As an homage to the late television host, Sperry has collaborated with Todd Snyder to put out a limited-edition CVO with a garment-washed canvas upper and period-accurate details to the pairs Rogers would have worn, including a chambray footbed and piped color strip.
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Moonstar Made-in-Japan Navy Gym Classic Canvas Sneaker
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Morjas The Deck Shoe
Image Credit: Morjas -
RRL Canvas Sneaker
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Garmsville by Goral Deck Shoe
Image Credit: Goral Founded in Poland in 1936, Goral decided to move its manufacturing to Sheffield, England, in 2005. The label, which operates on a small-batch, made-to-order basis, chose to collaborate with menswear model and writer Jason Jules—@garmsville on Instagram—to produce its deck shoe, which is made using a herringbone waxed cotton canvas sourced from Scottish mill Halley Stevensons, and built with a Blake stitch construction which allows it to be resoled for future wear.
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Faherty X Opie Way Deck Sneaker
Image Credit: Faherty X Opie Way Faherty’s deck sneaker is made by Opie Way, an American sneaker maker originally founded in Asheville, N.C., and now located in South Carolina following 2024’s Hurricane Helene. The domestically manufactured sneaker is made from waterproof Italian suede—an upgrade from canvas, though visually similar—and lined with vegetable-tanned leather and sits on an Italian-made rubber sole. Its clever, 360-degree sidewall stitch makes it eligible for Opie Way’s in-house resole program.
