{"id":57101,"date":"2025-09-30T16:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T14:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/?page_id=57101"},"modified":"2025-09-30T18:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:27:12","slug":"ons-verhaal","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/en\/ons-verhaal\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n2012-2020\n<\/div>

\nOur story\n<\/h1>\n<\/div>
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From a T-shirt design for a birthday ride, to front-runner in cycling-related leisure wear. Toon Claessens<\/strong> from The Vandal<\/strong> travelled a long way. A stage race full of coincidences and luck, but above all full of passion for the sport.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>

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\n2012\n<\/div>

\nLes Tours des Pop-ups\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>
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In 2012, Toon designed a shirt with the faces of the greats of the course on it, such as Eddy Merckx<\/strong> and Roger De Vlaeminck<\/strong>. He and his friends wore it to ride a stage of The Tour of Flanders together. In his spare time, he painted retro bikes<\/strong> with polka dots or lined them with newsprint from the pink Gazzetta dello Sport, although he didn't immediately see a business model in that. But combining his love of direction with his training in print preparation technology and graphic design<\/strong>, as well as his work in a custom textile printing store, there was more in his legs than just a hobby.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Toon was still designing and printing T-shirts, in small editions and meanwhile under the name The Vandal. It was the time of the pop-ups<\/strong>, the concept stores<\/strong> and the markets<\/strong> for young designers. All places where T-shirts went smoothly over the counter. Bicycle store Bike Project<\/strong> (then Fixerati) in Antwerp ordered a shipment, and Toon's apartment began to be full of boxes, the baby's room full of T-shirts. During the day, Toon was in the shop 4\/5ths of the time, working late into the night for The Vandal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>

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\n2014-2018\n<\/div>

\nThe heroes of The Vandal: Johan Museeuw, Nick Nuyens and Wout Van Aert\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>
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And then Toon got a phone call. None other than world champion Johan Museeuw<\/strong> asked if he could get that T-shirt that had his face on it, among those of all the other world champions. Toon first thought someone was playing a joke, and it certainly wasn't the last time he had to squeeze his arm because he suddenly found himself talking to one of his heroes. Museeuw began wearing designs by The Vandal regularly in public, and not much later he was hanging Nick Nuyens<\/strong> on the line.<\/p>\n

The former cyclist was starting a field and road team and was looking for a casual clothing partner. The Vandal wasn't big enough for that, but they could make the caps for Team Veranda Willems - Crelan. Not much later, Wout Van Aert and Tim Merlier were on the cross country podium almost every weekend with that cap on their heads. And when Van Aert finished third in his first participation in 2018 in an epic Strade Bianche<\/strong> he was also on stage with The Vandal cap in Sienna. That moment set the stage for further collaboration between The Vandal, Wout and his wife Sarah. And the world had seen it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>

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\n2015-2020\n<\/div>

\nFrom AS to BC\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>
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Whoever had seen it was AS Adventure<\/strong>. After speaking with their buyer in 2015, The Vandal created a private collection for the Belgian outdoor chain. In addition, since 2020, The Vandal has been an official partner of Belgian Cycling<\/a>. In the shared webshop, fans of our national cycling team<\/strong> a beautiful collection based on the iconic cycling jerseys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

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\nWebshop and stores\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>
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Meanwhile, The Vandal has an extensive webshop<\/strong> with two collections a year, the Belgian Cycling collection, custom designs<\/strong> and limited editions<\/strong>. In addition, the clothes are in 120 stores in Belgium<\/strong>, as well as in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Aruba, South Africa, the US and all over Europe. The collections include shirts, sweaters, jackets, joggings, shorts and accessories for men, women and children, for during and after cycling<\/strong>. Toon still designs everything himself, although of course The Vandal team has expanded considerably over the years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>

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\n2015-{{current_year}}\n<\/div>

\nCollaborations and Ambitions\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>
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In addition to existing fruitful collaborations with magazine Bahamontes<\/a>, Belgian Cycling<\/a>, and champions such as Lotte Kopecky<\/a>, Wout van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe, The Vandal has ambitions to become an even bigger player in eco outdoor fashion. Toon dreams of having a store selling The Vandal in every major capital city in the world, as well as becoming a name sponsor of a cycling team at the highest level one day. Meanwhile, The Vandal remains committed to the wide custom range<\/strong>, and continue to innovate and expand the collections.<\/p>\n

To be continued for sure, the sprint has only just begun.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

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2012-2020 Ons verhaal Van een T-shirt-ontwerp voor een verjaardagsrit, tot koploper in fietsgerelateerde vrijetijdskleding. Toon Claessens van The Vandal legde een lange weg af. Een rittenkoers vol toevalligheden en geluk, maar vooral vol passie voor de sport. 2012 Les Tours des Pop-ups In 2012 ontwierp Toon een shirt met de gezichten van de groten der […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":407,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-57101","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/407"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevandal.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}