<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/how-deconstructing-the-sneaker-is-protecting-the-amazon/>
"In 2003, while doing audits for a French fashion brand at a Chinese factory,
two French entrepreneurs, Sébastien Kopp and François-Ghislain Morillion,
discovered thirty workers crammed into a 270-square-foot room with a single
hole to drain the workers’ shower and also allow them to relieve themselves.
“We realized that globalization had gone wrong,” Kopp says.
They returned to Paris and decided to launch their own project, focused on
“deconstructing the sneaker.” Sneakers had become popular in the late 1980s and
’90s as everyday wear, often with athletes sporting and touting the latest
styles. But most of the money generated by big brands was going into marketing
budgets, not the supply chain, according to Kopp. “We didn’t know much about
shoes, but it was something everyone wore; we loved them as teenagers, and we
knew that we could get all the pieces required for the shoe in one place:
Brazil.”
He had traveled frequently to Brazil with Morillion previously, but there was a
significant problem: neither one spoke fluent Portuguese. That didn’t stop
them, though: “We just realized that if we, two 25-year-old idiots from France,
who didn’t even speak the language fully, could figure out how to build a fair
and transparent supply chain, then the big companies could do it, too — if they
want to.”
Investing approximately $5,500 (€5,000) each, they set out to build the first
prototype shoe for Veja (the name means “look” in Portuguese and is meant to
suggest “look behind the label”).
In 2004, just a year after having their awakening in the Chinese factory, Kopp
and Morillion dove into the effort of building a supply chain for Veja."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
