Veja doesn’t do surveys or freebies, hates greenwashing and Black Friday, and as demand for trainers wanes, it continues to go its own way
I
n the grand hierarchy of Paris fashion, it’s tricky for a brand to stand out. Especially one whose coup de maître is a goes-with-everything white sneaker. Yet 20 years after Veja first began selling sustainable footwear, it has become the ultimate affordable It brand for scooter-wielding mums, sustainably minded millennials and A-list bigwigs who want to wear their values on their ethical leather-clad feet.
Veja’s co-founder Sébastien Kopp says he doesn’t know if people buy his trainers because of how they are made or because of how they look. The company is fastidious about social and fairtrade practices, “but because we don’t do surveys, we don’t do marketing, we simply don’t know this information”, he says, speaking from Veja’s Paris headquarters.
It also doesn’t do freebies. When the actor Emma Watson wanted a pair, she did what no celebrity has ever done, “and she bought”. So did Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. “I received an email from the [palace] asking about them, but I thought it was fake so I didn’t reply.”
