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Floris: “In 1995, my father invited me to attend some of their collection meetings. I was 20 and still a student at the TMO in Doorn at the time. The school wanted us to have a side job in fashion, and dutiful as I was, I agreed. During these collection meetings, one topic was regularly discussed, namely that it was very difficult to sell fashionable shoes under the banner of the ‘Van Bommel’ brand. In the past few years, this had been tried several times and each time our dealers simply ignored those fashionable styles, claiming ‘You are known for your classic shoes, that’s what we buy from you. We buy our fashionable shoes from brands that are known for them.’ At that time, we didn't have our own physical store and online shops didn't exist yet, so that's where it ended.
Floris: “In 1995, we decided to sell a small line of fashionable shoes not under the brand name ‘Van Bommel’ but under the new name ‘Floris van Bommel’. For this new brand name, my father needed a new logo. As a 20-year-old student, I still came home every weekend to recover from a week of ‘strenuous studying’. During one of those weekends, sometime in late 1995, my father shoved a blank sheet of paper and some markers into my hand. He wanted me to write my name on it a few times.
The early Floris van Bommel years
In 1996, Frans van Bommel introduced a new fashion sub-label that he named after his middle son Floris. The sub-label developed into a fully-fledged brand and in 15 years' time, it even tripled the turnover of the Van Bommel shoe factory. On this page, Floris tells how he started working in the shoe factory in 1999 and how the early years of the Floris van Bommel brand went. The account covers the period until 2015. More recent developments can be found on ‘Floris & friends’, ‘Our soles’ and ‘campaign trips’.
Floris: “The Floris van Bommel collection continued to do well. In the winter of 1999, sales grew from a few hundred pairs per season to several thousands. The Floris van Bommel brand awareness was still minimal, but our dealers enjoyed working with the new line. For consumers, a Floris van Bommel shoe was just a nice Van Bommel shoe; they hardly noticed that it was another brand. My father didn’t care that much, he wanted fashionable Van Bommel shoes in the shops, that had been the challenge and he had succeeded.
After completing my training, I decided to join the family business. My father first sent me abroad for a year and a half to gain experience in the shoe business and develop my personality. When that was done, I started working at Schoenfabriek van Bommel in late 1999 at the age of 24. My father provided me with a windowless office, an oval table, some binders, and a file of his marketing work. The onboarding programme were only two words: ‘Get Started’. From the very first day, I was given the responsibilities I still have today: designing collections and handling communications and promotion.”
Floris: “To promote the first Floris van Bommel collection, my father needed photos for advertisements, showcards, brochures and press releases. I was still a student, but my father insisted on having me in the photo. It was best for the story. I thought it was all very exciting and agreed.
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!
Floris: “In 2000, we had the opportunity to become the ‘official supplier’ of the Benetton Formula 1 team. You can read how this came about here. The partnership generated a lot of publicity for our still fairly new brand. It was front-page news at several national dailies and there were satellite cars on our doorstep to broadcast live on TV.
In early 2005, we introduced the very first Floris van Bommel sneaker line. It’s hard to imagine now, more than 20 years later, but in the early 2000s, sneakers designed by a non-sports brand were a novelty. People liked wearing sneakers, but these were all functional sports shoes from big brands. One journalist disparagingly referred to our sneaker as an ‘office sneaker’, just to point out that it was weird for a classic shoe brand to make sneakers. We thought it a good idea to advertise the new sneaker line in a big way.
In 2006, we released the follow-up to the first sneaker line. We changed the model and colours a bit, but other than that, it pretty much stayed the same. We decided to shoot another commercial. After the bright green model in 2005, we chose a bright yellow sneaker for the ad campaign. While working out, I got an idea for the commercial. I thought it would be fun to include this good old yellow banana candy in the commercial as inspiration for the yellow sneaker.
Floris: “For three hundred years, our factory exclusively sold shoes through its dealer network. At the beginning of the 21st century, the rise of online shopping put this dealer network under a lot of pressure. More and more independent shoe retailers started disappearing from the high streets due to poor sales and a lack of successors. That’s why in 2008, we opened our first ‘Van Bommel’ brand store on Huidevetterstraat in Antwerp. A second one followed in Bruges in 2009. The Floris van Bommel brand has its own section in these two Belgian Van Bommel shops. As the brand kept growing, the third shop we opened in Amsterdam in 2011, became the first Floris van Bommel brand store. In subsequent years, a number of brand stores and outlets followed in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. After some delay, the Floris van Bommel online shop also went online in 2015.
Floris: “In 2008, for the first time, we sold as many Floris van Bommel shoes as Van Bommel shoes. The good news was also that we didn’t sell less Van Bommel shoes but even slightly more. Floris van Bommel was less and less often considered a line within the Van Bommel collection and more and more as an independent brand. We noticed this, for instance, among our dealers, who started buying the two brands separately.
Before I joined the company, my father sent me abroad for a year and a half. I studied international marketing in southern France for six months, learned pattern drawing in Milan, interned at a last factory in Germany and a fashion designer in Milan, and I worked for a few months in the shoe factory ‘Area Forte’ in Montegranaro. I wrote this piece for the German news magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ in 2024 reminiscing about my time in the Italian shoe factory:
Floris: “In 2008, we buy screen time for a new commercial at a number of major Dutch cinemas. We shoot the film at our factory in Moergestel and of course, we try to make it funny again…”
Floris: "Sometime in 2011, I took my father on a trip. I didn’t tell him what we’re going to do: surprise! A few days before, I had received a call from the operator of a large network of XL advertising towers along the motorway. Some spaces were still vacant. The gentleman offered that if we came up with something creative, he’d put it up for a friendship price. I happily took on the challenge.
Floris: “In 2011 en 2012 worden de kantoren bij onze fabriek flink verbouwd en uitgebreid. Tijdens de officiële opening metselt mijn vader een gedenksteen in, in de muur bij de hoofdingang. Hij plaatst de steen onder een steen die hij daar 60 jaar eerder, als 10 jarig kind, plaatste. Op de oude steen staat: ‘Deze steen is gelegd door Frans van Bommel, 15 sept 1951’. Op de nieuwe steen eronder staat: ‘Deze ook. 27 nov. 2012’. “
End of the 20th century
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