Floris: “In 1996, we sold several hundred pairs of shoes from the first Floris van Bommel line. That was quite a success, because for the first time in a long time our dealers were interested in fashionable shoes from our factory. My father felt that the Floris van Bommel image could be a bit more daring. He commissioned our then advertising agency Vosch to design a high-profile campaign featuring me again.

On the day of the photo shoot, I was told what the plan was: nudity! Our advertising agency wanted me to appear naked in the campaign, so I had to be photographed being naked. In post-production, they would place a pair of shoes where my crotch was and heavily edit the photos with special effects and backgrounds. The photographer bought me nude-coloured tights for the shoot so I wouldn't really have to be naked in the studio. It soon turned out though that the tights are too matt. The studio light didn’t reflect enough, and they really needed it glossy. Stripped down to my boxers, I was still too matt. Somebody found a bottle of salad oil in the kitchen. The photographer's assistant thoroughly rubbed my whole body with oil. That afternoon, shivering from the cold, I stood like a shiny eel in my underwear on a box in the middle of a very large photo studio, striking the weirdest poses.

A few months later, I stood next to my own ghostly appearance waiting for the bus in Doorn, where I was still a student. The campaign was on display at bus shelters all across the country. My father was pleased. It was a striking campaign that even generated some controversy. In the middle of the country, one of our dealers thought the images had an overly religious connotation. He sent us an elaborate handwritten letter with all sorts of biblical quotes in it. The gist of it was that if we carried on like this, things wouldn’t end well for Schoenfabriek van Bommel. My father wasn’t impressed by this.”

(Image above: A slightly more high-profile second campaign.)