Veja Built a Booming Sneaker Brand by Breaking Every Rule
20.10.2022 - 13:07
/ msn.com
Daily Mail shouted—the company’s website crashed. “The website didn’t crash,” Kopp says, taking a drag on a Marlboro Light. OK, I say.
Though I also heard Kopp had no idea who Meghan Markle was. “My team, yes. Me? No.
”Kopp’s casual attitude toward pop culture (or fashion trends, for that matter) won’t surprise followers of Veja. The sustainable brand, co-founded nearly 20 years ago by childhood friends and one-time bankers Kopp and François-Ghislaine Morillion, reported annual sales of $120 million in 2020, up from $78. 5 million the year before.
But the company, which responsibly sources wild rubber from the Amazon, spends exactly zero dollars on advertising. Veja does not gift products to celebrities either and, as Kopp tells me, they recently ignored a request from the costume department at Netflix’s Emily in Paris. Despite its ambivalence (or perhaps because of it) Veja has been embraced by celebrities (Ben Affleck and Eddie Redmayne among them) and the fashion elite alike.
Rick Owens did five collaborations with Veja; a second Veja x Marni drop arrives this month. Kopp, wearing a lived-in army surplus jacket and black Norse Projects pants, was equally lax about Veja’s increasingly global profile: “Every day we receive 10 calls: I’m a banker from J. P.
Morgan, my client wants to buy Veja, can we set up a meeting? We don’t answer. ” (More on that soon. ) With the brand’s 20th anniversary coming up in 2024, one question looms: How did two 25-year-olds (with no experience in fashion) start a sustainable brand with just £9,000 and end up a player in the hyper-competitive sneaker market? Kopp (whom everyone calls Seb) and Morillion (who goes by Ghislaine) met during high school in Paris—two serious-minded economics
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