News Detail Press

23.02.2024

BIRKENSTOCK INAUGURATES ITS FIRST OFFICE FOR THE BENELUX IN AMSTERDAM

BIRKNSTOCK, the global purpose brand and inventor of the footbed, announces the opening of its first-ever regional office in the benelux. Located in the heart of Amsterdam, the combined office and showroom space in the Sarphatistraat will serve as a hub for BIRKNSTOCK to further strengthen its presence and commercial expansion in the region and to engage in meaningful conversations with local stakeholders and protagonists of Amsterdam's renowned creative and business community. After having served the dutch market through a distributor for almost 40 years, BIRKNSTOCK has started to serve its customers in the Netherlands directly for the first time in the long and rich history of the company.

The new BIRKENSTOCK office and showroom in Amsterdam is the latest addition to the brand's growing portfolio of office locations in key markets. Aesthetically, the 530 square meter building aligns with other prestigious office spaces the brand has established in recent years, such as at the Rue de Saint Honoré in Paris, New York's Soho district, or the Lenbach Palais in Munich. High design, quality, and authenticity standards are fundamental to the BIRKENSTOCK brand. This is also reflected in the environments the brand creates for its customers and employees.

A BALANCE OF MODERN AND ARTISTIC SHAPES

As a nod to the local community, BIRKENSTOCK has collaborated nearly exclusively with Amsterdam-based partners to bring the space to life: The original mansion from 1868 with an eclectic architectural style was completely and sustainably renovated to create a lavish and design-driven office property by DME Amsterdam, a premium real estate development studio specialized in the reshaping of iconic buildings. To translate its brand identity into a premium environment that serves both as a showroom for customers in the Benelux market and as a welcoming and inspiring environment for its employees, BIRKENSTOCK commissioned the local design bureau Griffe Studio. The venue’s sophisticated interior concept creates a perfect balance between modern and artistic shapes inside a historical, majestic building that extends over five floors and includes a garden and a garden house. The combination of BIRKENSTOCK’s trademark color, bright blue, with natural, soft colors and materials underlines this balance, letting the building, the interior, and the showcased collections of BIRKENSTOCK products complement each other while maintaining their autonomy within the space. The interior is built using iconic furniture and art of Dutch origin. Architectural details of the building have been incorporated into the interior design, connecting it subtly to the historical context. Furniture, materials, and art have been carefully curated to underline BIRKENSTOCK's brand identity visually, including custom-designed wooden cabinets with BIRKENSTOCK's sole shape, open weave curtains, cork merchandise details, woolen carpets, felt cabinet inserts, and art pieces using natural materials. With its new office and showroom in Amsterdam, BIRKENSTOCK and its local contributors have created a seamless and harmonious connection between the building, the brand resident within, and the interior.

Fabio Ortega, Vice President Wholesale Europe, says: "From a cultural and economic perspective, Amsterdam is one of the most important cities in the European market. Our new Amsterdam office will serve as a perfect hub to further extend the relationship with our customers, partners, consumers, and the fans of our brand in the region. The extraordinarily designed office and showroom space reflects BIRKENSTOCK’s dedication to quality, design, and tradition and underlines our commitment to becoming a contributing element to the local community of Amsterdam. My team and I are excited to engage in meaningful conversations with our local and regional stakeholders."

Press contact

Jochen Gutzy
Chief Communications Officer

Birkenstock Group B.V. & Co. KG
Burg Ockenfels
53545 Linz

Postal address:
Sedanstraße 4
D-50668 Köln

E-mail:mediabirkenstockcom

GETTING CLOSER TO DUTCH CUSTOMERS AND CONSUMERS

The opening of the office and showroom space follows the establishment of BIRKENSTOCK's own distribution company in the Dutch market in July of last year and marks the next strategic milestone of the company's transformation process in Europe.

Since 1984, BIRKENSTOCK products have been distributed by a local partner in the Netherlands. As of July last year, the inventor of the footbed has started to serve the Dutch market directly - a strategy the company has also pursued in other focus markets such as France and Belgium, uplifting the brand's presence and focusing on the distribution quality. With these steps, BIRKENSTOCK aims to strengthen the Direct-to-Consumer business further and bolster wholesale distribution in the region by bringing the essence of BIRKENSTOCK directly to its customers, providing an unfiltered and authentic experience of the brand.

"Everywhere BIRKENSTOCK is present as a brand, we also want to have a team on the ground. The significant growth of our business, especially in the last year, and the dynamic consumer and distribution landscape in the diverse and multicultural European market make it essential for us to be close to our partners and to the fans of our brand, and have our eyes and ears on the ground, wherever we do business. The establishment of our new office in Amsterdam and the decision to serve the Benelux region directly very much symbolize the multifaceted way we are doing business in Europe: With proximity to our customers, close alignment with the dynamic local market needs and the commitment to present the complete bandwidth of the BIRKENSTOCK brand and its product range,” says Nico Bouyakhf, President & Managing Director EUROPE.

With the Dutch senior executive Rafshan Amir, BIRKENSTOCK has assigned a country manager for the region who is all but a stranger to the fashion and lifestyle business. Most recently, Rafshan has led the business for the footwear brand Dr. Martens in the Benelux; before that, the multifaceted leader had supported brands such as Nike, Timberland, Puma, and Levi’s in various functions. “Now the time has come to open a new chapter of BIRKENSTOCK in the Benelux, in which we want to align our offering more strongly with the fast-changing local market demands and requirements. The direct distribution offers us the great opportunity to deepen and enhance the relations with our customers,” explains Rafshan Amir, Country Manager Benelux.

Rafshan Amir took over responsibility for the BIRKENSTOCK business in the Benelux on February 1st and works with his team from the newly opened office and showroom space in Amsterdam’s Sarphatistraat.

THE YEAR OF THE FOOTBED

In addition to the inauguration of its first-ever office in the Netherlands, 2024 marks an outstanding moment for BIRKENSTOCK, as this is also the year the purpose and zeitgeist brand celebrates 250 years of family tradition in shoemaking: It was in 1774 that the first traces of shoemaker Johann Adam Birkenstock appear in historical records from church archives, marking the beginning of a heritage in shoemaking that has already lasted two and a half centuries. Throughout the year, the international zeitgeist brand deeply rooted in orthopedics and the universal purpose of enabling “walking as nature intended”, will celebrate its tradition with outstanding brand and product activations that will be launched in the next months.

About BIRKENSTOCK

BIRKENSTOCK is a global brand which embraces all consumers regardless of geography, gender, age and income and which is committed to a clear purpose - maintaining foot health. Deeply rooted in studies of the biomechanics of the human foot and footed on a family tradition of shoemaking that can be traced back to 1774, BIRKENSTOCK is a timeless «super brand» with a brand universe that transcends product categories and ranges from entry-level to luxury price points while addressing the growing need for a conscious and active lifestyle. Function, quality and tradition are the core values of the lifestyle brand which features products in the footwear, sleep systems and natural cosmetics segments. BIRKENSTOCK is the inventor of the footbed and has shaped the principle of walking as intended by nature (“Naturgewolltes Gehen”).

With around 6,200 employees worldwide, we believe how things are made matters as much as the product itself. To ensure these quality standards, we operate a vertically integrated manufacturing base and produce all our footbeds in Germany. In addition, we assemble over 95% of our products in Germany and we source over 90% of our materials and components from Europe. We process our inputs to the highest environmental and social standards in the industry by operating state-of-the-art scientific laboratories for materials testing.

BIRKENSTOCK runs operational sites in Germany, in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, Bavaria, Saxony, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Headquartered in Linz am Rhein, the BIRKENSTOCK Group also operates its own sales offices in the United States and Canada as well as in Brazil, Japan, Denmark, Poland, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Dubai, Singapore and India.

Birkenstock Group B.V. & Co. KG Burg Ockenfels,
Linz am Rhein, Germany

You can find our online shop at www.birkenstock.com