Sandals and slides company Birkenstock are no strangers to collabs, working with designers such as Rick Owens, Opening Ceremony, Concepts and Colette but one company has really got the spotlight shining bright over the brand. According to the company’s CEO, they turned down a chance to collaborate with one of the hottest brands out there, Supreme. Yes guys, we know, a Sup x Birkinstock slider/sandal would go down a treat, but it doesn’t look likely.
CEO Oliver Reichert spoke about brand’s success in a recent interview with The Cut. Reichert, is quite an outspoken guy, compared collaborations with the likes of Supreme and Vetements to “prostitution” and proclaiming, “I don’t give a shit about fashion.”.
We’ve taken the best bits from the interview and broken them down below. If you would like to read the whole interview, head over to The Cut
On turning down collaborations with Supreme and Vetements, both of which wanted to put logos on sandals
“There’s no benefit for us except prostitution, because this is just prostitution.”
On creativity
“Is there any chance that I will get somebody like a Karl Lagerfeld? Maybe. But is Karl Lagerfeld the gravedigger of Chanel or the god of Chanel? Because what’s after Lagerfeld? I mean, it’s a serious question. Who will fill this gap when he is gone? I think the problem is we try to focus creativity on a very small group of people. It’s not working. My guess is it’s better to be around in the world, invite people to creativity, and you can pick what is fitting to the brand and what is not fitting.”
On fashion
“I don’t give a shit about fashion. Fashion is, pfffttt, what is fashion? Inditex [owner of Zara] is doing fashion 12 times a year. What is this nonsense? But I know people are hungry for pure things. And there’s a huge crowd of people heavily believing in and loving this brand. And it’s not because of the nice people working there, because there are no nice people. And it’s not because of the marketing, because there’s no marketing. There’s nothing. It must be the product. Because they do everything wrong — everything! — I’ve met so many people who said, ‘Yeah, I tried to call your company in 1983, 1989, and nobody was answering.’”
