20 Years In, It’s Safe To Say Veja Is Sticking Around

There are a lot of brands out there with big talk about sustainability, but Veja is one of the few that can fully back up its claims. The French sneaker company makes its products with organic cotton and rubber purchased at a market-decorrelated rate (i.e., a wage based on livability, not supply and demand) in Peru and Brazil. Everything is produced in Brazilian factories that adhere to the highest standards, including benefits, paid vacation, and safety-checked conditions. Shipping facilities, too, are designed for social impact: In particular, the company’s Log’ins location in Northern France employs disabled workers and assists them on settling into a long-lasting career path.

But perhaps the most striking aspect of all these careful measures? That many of Veja’s biggest customers aren’t aware of them — and the label has no interest in forcing them to learn.

“It’s a supplement [to the product],” François-Ghislain Morillion, who founded Veja with his childhood-friend-turned-business-partner Sébastien Kopp in 2005, tells me. He continues on to explain that an enticing pair of shoes is always going to attract more attention than the pains taken to make them responsibly.

It’s a chilly early February evening, and Morillion and I are in his office at Veja headquarters in Paris. A small group of journalists and I have spent the day touring the property and learning the ins and outs of his business. We’ve marveled at the building’s midcentury architecture (the space used to house the printing press for a Communist Party newspaper); soaked up new product displays; and enjoyed pasta and chocolate mousse in the airy, communal kitchen. But as both the co-founders and Veja team walk us through their processes, one key point just keeps coming up: Sustainability is the bedrock to every challenge they tackle — not for the sake of the shopper, but for their own satisfaction. This, while important, is not always easy.

“I think what we have to follow is not sainthood; it’s justice, which brings a lot more joy,” notes Morillion. And at the end of the day, he points out, it’s sales, plain and simple, that make responsible production possible. “And when I feel am doing the right thing — not in front of a customer or the press, but the people I’m working with — it brings me a real joy.”

Meanwhile, should any green-minded shoppers be interested as to the origins of their new kicks, the information is certainly easy enough to access on Veja’s site. “The difference with Veja is that we always want to be transparent about everything: how the sneakers are produced, where the organic cotton comes from, which communities are recycling the plastic bottles to create PET [polyethylene terephthalate], you name it,” says Kopp. “We are on the ground and seeing everything with our own eyes and working directly with the producers, suppliers, cobblers, and shipping facilities.”

As Veja fetes its 20th anniversary this year, a long-view attitude toward mindful creation and consumption continues to be constant for Morillion and Kopp. Former financiers who had become disenchanted with the industry, the pair set out in the early 2000s to tour the best nonprofits in the world and potentially start a project of their own. (At one point, they ruefully tell our group, an underwear line was on the table... but this idea died on the vine.)

“Our objective when we left was not to create a brand of sneakers because it was not in our universe,” says Morillion. But somewhere between skipping town and finding themselves in São Paulo, Brazil, they began to think about marrying the region’s raw materials with the footwear they were noticing on cool young locals everywhere: a sleek style based on the Brazilian volleyball sneakers of the 1970s. Fast-forward a few rough sketches and countless back-and-forth conversations with local factories and suppliers and Morillion and Kopp miraculously had a prototype on their hands in time for their very first trade show.

Two decades later, the label’s reach is undeniable — a fact I am constantly reminded of during my visit to France. As I walk down the winding cobblestone street of Paris, I find myself clocking just how many different types of people are wearing sneakers with the label’s telltale V on the side. I see commuters pairing sleek, minimalist styles with chic trousers; children trailing behind their parents in colorful pairs with the occasional shimmery accent; insouciant teenagers mixing their Veja kicks with baggy jeans and hoodies. The city is also packed with Veja stores, all of which have their own distinct personality: There’s the white-walled outpost near Montmartre and the nearby Center Commercial concept shop, which is a treasure trove of cult-favorite labels like Baserange, Studio Nicholson, and Miista. Over in the 10th arrondissement, they’ve opened a General Store stocked with items meant to extend the life of quotidian objects (I picked up a bar of stain-removal soap that’s saved more than few T-shirts already) and an in-house shoe repair shop.

This is not to say Veja isn’t poised for American domination as well. It has physical locations in both New York City’s Williamsburg and SoHo neighborhoods (the former is fully kitted with a cobbler), and the shoes are carried by mega retailers like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Zappos. Really, once you start paying attention — from the cool, besneakered girl in line ahead of you at the coffee shop to department store ads plastered at your local train station to athletic footwear display at a buzzy concept shop — you’ll start noticing Veja in surprising corners of everyday life. The label has also become something of a celebrity go-to over the last several years, and counts VIPs such as Kate Middleton, Emily Ratajkowski, and Emma Watson as fans. This certainly must be boon for a brand that doesn’t spend a single cent on traditional campaigns.

“We work with PR, and do launches in stores, but it’s going to be like 2% to 3% of our total budget, versus if you look at the usual shoe companies, it will be like 30% to 50%,” notes Morillion. An untraditional approach to advertising also allows Veja to be nimble and ambitious with its creative endeavors. This year alone, it is launching multiple new products and categories, including a version of its Condor running shoes made in partnership with runner and designer Cesar Villalba and the Panenka soccer shoes, inspired by the signature move of Czech footballer Antonín Panenka. “When it comes to our designs and collaborations, we stick to what we love and who we like to work with,” says Kopp. “Not to what trends dictate.”

Indeed, much like all things in life, gut intuition has proved the best policy for Veja. And as the co-founders celebrate two decades of solid growth, it is the strategy they’re going to stick with. “If the shoe is really nice, you don’t need to spend a dollar on advertising because people will actually like it and buy it,” says Morillion thoughtfully. “This gives us a bit more work to do, but in a way it also keeps us also healthy — we always need to have really good products that work.”