Veja to Open Cobbler Store in Madrid
Next month, French cult sneaker label Veja opens its latest retail and repair location in Madrid.
As part of its ongoing circularity journey, the company will include an in-store cobbler to encourage its shoppers to repair and clean their sneakers. The cobbler format is already in select Veja stores in Berlin and Paris.
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“I think we’re one of the best brands in tracing and seeing everything, but once a pair of sneakers was sold to the public we had opacity,” Veja cofounder Sebastien Kopp told WWD. “By working on recycling, we say, ‘There’s a step before recycling to make life longer.’ We started repair in 2020 in Paris and it was a huge success in France. So we do things as we always do. We try, we fail or we succeed. Then we build another cobbler and another and another.”
The in-store repair amenities extend to not just Veja products but any other sneaker brand, with cost varying from $10 and up depending on item condition and regardless of brand. Thousands of shoes have been repaired since the program’s inception.
“I can tell you from those last three years, with COVID-19, etc. It’s a success,” Kopp said. “We just want to set an example. That it’s possible, cool and that people are surprised by the result.”
As he confirmed, there is also a location set to open in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this fall.
Veja recently held a panel conversation in its SoHo store in Manhattan titled “Cotton Convo: From Field to Sneaker.” The session spanned regenerative cotton, certification and long-term sourcing partnerships. For 19 years, Veja has sourced organic cotton directly from producers, teaming with organizations Bergman Riviera (Veja’s cotton partner in Peru). Mariela Calderon, director of certification at Bergman Riviera, said that in a few short years, the Veja partnership has grown to 300 farmers.
All things considered, Kopp acknowledged the challenges in leading with sustainability. “One of the problems in our society is nobody knows how stuff is made and the traceability of every component of the products. There was foolishness at the beginning of Veja to say, ‘We’re going to deconstruct a sneaker and build it from nothing, but going to see the raw materials we’re going to use, the factories we’re going to use and the warehouses we’re going to use.’ It was a bet to do it without advertising, without investors. It was not really the time but that’s what we believe in. Veja is the materialization of what we believe in.”
This maturation of mission and gut instinct drives Kopp. “My favorite pair is never on the shelves. It’s the next one,” he said, describing the relentless urge to continue innovating Veja footwear.
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