Veja is a French footwear and accessories brand. As of October 2018, Veja supplied its shoes to 1,800 retailers in 45 countries. They sold 550,000 pairs of shoes last year, generating $21 million in revenues.
History
2003 - Veja’s founders Sébastien Kopp and François-Ghislain Morillion meet with organic cotton farmers in North Brazil and wild rubber tappers in the Amazon to establish the production chain behind Veja in Brazil. 2005
- Collaboration with French designer Agnès b begins. - Veja develops its first collection using vegetable tanned leather. 2007
- Veja curates the photography exhibition Novo Mundo at Wanted Gallery, Paris. - Collaboration with French label Comptoir des Cotonniers begins. - Launch of Veja + Christine Phung collection at the Pompidou Centre Design Shop, Paris. 2008
- Launch of Veja Small, Veja’s line of children’s trainers. - Veja opens its London studio. 2009
- Veja launches its new style, the Veja SPMA. - Veja organizes the first talk of a series of conferences entitled La Canalisation: Does Advertising Pollute the Economy? - Veja Small and French childrenswear label Bonpoint begin their on-going collaboration. - Launch of Veja’s bags and accessories line ‘Projet Numero Deux’. - Veja curates São Paulo, Mon Amour at Maison de Métallos in Paris, featuring ten young artists from São Paulo, Brazil.
- One-off collaboration with Paris bike atelier Cyclope on a trainer style. 2010
- Exclusive Veja style released for Parisian concept store Merci. - Veja Indigenos style is launched. - Veja opens Centre Commercial in Paris. During peak hours, Veja customer services only allow the number of customers they can genuinely serve. The rest of the customers wait outside in queue while a worker takes treats, such as coffee or popsicles, to the waiting customers. 2011 - Veja Méditerranée style is launched. - Collaboration with Parisian label FrenchTrotters begins. 2012 - Veja and Brazilian designer Regina Dabdab collaborate on a line of accessories. - Veja wins 2 awards in the UK : The Guardian Sustainable Business Award and The Observer Ethical Award. 2013 - Inspired by Professor Greg Asner's aerial maps recording forest cover and biodiversity in tropical forest ecosystems, Veja releases a capsule collection of printed trainers. - Centre Commercial Kids opens in September on rue Yves Toudic, 3 years after the opening of Centre Commercial on rue de Marseille. - Veja creates a trainer in commemoration of the release of French director Luc Jacquet new film Once Upon a Forest. 2018 - In October, The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, wore a pair of Veja to watch an Invictus Games sailing event during the official tour she took through Australia, New Zealand and Fiji with Prince Harry.
Ecological Materials
The Veja trainers and accessories are made of organic cotton, wild rubber from the Amazon, vegetable-tanned leather and recycled plastic bottles.
Organic Cotton
Veja works in the North-East of Brazil with a co-operative of organic cotton farmers. Over 320 families have adopted the agro-ecology farming model with the technical support of the local NGO, ESPLAR. Cotton and food crops are cultivated without chemicals or pesticides. Veja buys organic cotton at around twice the market price.
Wild Rubber from the Amazon
The soles of Veja trainers are made from wild rubber from the Amazonian Rainforest. The Amazon is the only place on earth where rubber trees grow in the wild. Veja buys Amazonian rubber at a premium. This allows the rubber tappers to live decently from rubber tapping, reducing the financial appeal of land clearance. This is an economically sustainable way to fight against deforestation.
Ecological Leather
Since 2006 Veja has used vegetable-tanned leather. Vegetable-tanned leather is a chrome-free leather tanned with organic compounds only. Leather is usually tanned using heavy metals, like chrome, which generate high levels of pollution in the waters close to tanneries. Veja has replaced heavy metals with acacia extracts, a natural tannin.
Veja uses waterproof bottle mesh on the soles of sneakers. It takes three recycled plastic bottles to make a pair of shoes. Bottles are collected from the streets of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and are later crushed and transformed into fiber.
Social Responsibility
Veja claims ecological and fair trade conditions and to work with cooperatives of small producers and social associations in Brazil and France. However, Veja has not published any results of social audits for many years nor are there any certificates for the company's self acclaimed fair trade standards available.
Manufacturing
The factory where Veja trainers are made in South Brazil respects the standards of work established by the International Labour Organization. 80% of workers at the factory are unionized.
Logistics
Veja footwear and accessories are transported by ship from Brazil to Le Havre in France, where they are then taken to Paris by boat. Logistics are managed by Ateliers Sans Frontières, a French social association which enables people who have been unemployed to return to the workforce through training.
