Mercer vegan sneaker brand opens first flagship

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 26, 2021

Mercer, the high-end Dutch sustainable sneaker brand, has opened its  flagship brand store in Amsterdam. Located at Ferdinand Bolstraat 54 in De Pijp, the boutique “immerses the consumer in the world of Mercer with its latest SS21 collection”. 

The new store can be accessed by appointment only at present due to retail restrictions linked to the pandemic. But for the future, the plan is that it will be “a place for the Mercer community to chill and have a coffee, [with] the biggest Mercer collection in the world, a fully curated vintage section, a drink, some PlayStation, a place to recycle your old sneakers and more”.

It puts the firm’s ethical and sustainability obsessions at the forefront with a giant recycling box in the centre of the store. Mercer is inviting its customers to recycle their old sneakers in-store for which they’ll get an 8.7% discount on their purchase of a new pair. The company chose the rather surprising 8.7% figure as it “represents the 87 million shoes that end up in landfill each year”. 

The brand, which is also sold online in the UK and Europe makes vegan sneakers using materials such as wine and pineapple leather, and is one of a number of companies using plant-based leather alternatives these days.

The company said it “makes a statement showcasing that vegan sneakers can be both unique and effortlessly cool”. 

Founder and head designer Pim Dresen said: “Considering fashion is the most polluting industry in the world I think it is very important for us a small brand to make a statement and show that it is possible to make sneakers with alternative materials and source them locally instead of internationally”.

The brand was founded back in 2013 and named after the fact that Dresen bought his first pair of sneakers at Mercer street in NYC. It was the first brand to collaborate with Piñatex to create the first fully sustainable vegan sneaker made from pineapple leather.