Forget Black Friday: Veja Introduces ‘Repair Friday’
As shopfronts and online retailers prepare for Black Friday sales, the French footwear and accessories brand Veja is taking a stand against mass consumption.
The brand is offering their own alternative to discounted items by introducing Repair Friday, which will take place on Nov. 29 and 30 at Veja’s Paris headquarters.
“Since 2017, Veja has opted out of participating in Black Friday. Offering an alternative since 2020, we have established 10 cobbler spaces globally, repairing 35,000 pairs of shoes to date, including those from Veja and other major brands,” said Sébastien Kopp, the brand’s cofounder in an interview.
“Black Friday is 24 hours of relentless promotions on everything imaginable – a frenzy of consumption followed by emptiness. The money is spent, the excitement fades, and many of the items purchased quickly become waste. People buy products that generate massive carbon emissions during transport, only for them to end up in the trash,” he added.
Last year, the brand introduced Free Friday, another alternative to Black Friday, where they provided free repairs for one pair of sneakers at any of their cobbler locations and accepted sneakers from any brand.
The brand received 450 pairs of sneakers for repair within 24 hours. This year Veja is anticipating to welcome around 500 people to their Repair Friday event.
At the brand’s London store on Monmouth Street, which opened earlier this year, the in-store cobbler has repaired 595 pairs so far, averaging around 100 pairs per month.
Veja’s retail expansion has been on a streak. The brand set up shop in Brooklyn on 111 North 5th Street and opened a Veja General Store in Paris, a 100 square meter space with two cobblers that work on repairing sneakers and shoes all day long, as well as a tailor who will repair clothes.
Kopp said that the U.K. was Veja’s top performing European market in 2023 followed by France, Italy, Germany, Benelux and Spain.