Jérôme Dreyfuss discusses European expansion and brand values

More than 20 years after its launch, Jérôme Dreyfuss opened its first own-brand store outside of France. The leather goods brand – which recently opened its capital to the family office Cap Invest – chose the Netherlands, one of its key markets, to begin a new phase of development.

FashionUnited met its founder, Jérôme Dreyfuss, in the heart of the historic and commercial district of Negen Straatjes, in his new Amsterdam store.

This store is your first outside of France. Why did you choose Amsterdam?

Jerome Dreyfuss: The Netherlands is our second largest market, after France and ahead of the US, both in physical stores and online. I have always had, like many French people, this kind of fantasy about Dutch women in the 1970s. I find it very inspiring to see the girls here in the street, on their bikes, with their kids, their laptops. When I started [the brand] and I came to Amsterdam, I saw all these girls with their bikes and their bags in the front basket, I thought: “they need something”. That’s how I started making bags with very long straps and cross body bags. I was told it was awful, but in life girls need to have their hands free. We have to stop saying “be beautiful and shut up”.

Amsterdam was a good testing ground for me. While French women were very into chic, Dutch women were more into practicality. This came later in France, with a 10 or 15 year gap. Now, we are all on bikes and in cross-body bags, but we weren’t a little over 20 years ago, when I started. So it’s a fair return to one of my sources of inspiration.

And why open only now?

Because the brand is developing and I focus a lot on Europe, mainly for ecological reasons. I don’t want to work in China or the US, it doesn’t inspire me much at the moment. For me, Europe is a large enough playground to work in and allows me to transport things as much as possible by train, not to fly, to have short transport times, and therefore, ecologically, to reduce our CO2 emissions. It’s part of the company’s process to manage its guilt as best we can.

How do you see the future of the brand in Europe?

There will soon be Spain, near Madrid, and Italy, because I love Spain and Italy is an important market for us. We are lucky that it works, so we have to support the development of the company, but I’m not in a hurry, I don’t have delusions of grandeur.

‘I find it appealing to help girls’

I’m talking to girls who need a little discreet luxury. But even the word luxury bothers me. I think it’s overused. If luxury is selling plastic bags with big logos, then I’m not doing luxury. We prefer to promote craftsmanship, since we only work with small workshops. It’s luxury because it’s made with care, with attention, that each stage of the product’s creation, from its creation, meets an expectation. I work more like an architect than a fashion designer. I find it appealing to help girls.

Regarding the second-hand market, where is the brand?

It’s a market that we developed just before Covid-19. It doesn’t bring us any money at all, but I’m very interested in it. For the message it conveys first of all: the fact that a bag lasts a lifetime. I also like the idea of giving access to younger people, without them having to spend a month’s salary. If we can make access easier for people who “only” have 300 euros to spend, that’s already a lot of money, it’s also a way of telling the customer that we respect that. I don’t come from a very wealthy background and I’m aware that a bag at 500 or 600 euros represents a lot of money. When you’re 20 and you want to treat yourself, it can also be cool to buy a vintage piece that will cost “only 300” instead of 600 euros. It’s a bit like getting a new generation off the ground. It’s a way of democratising craftsmanship.

What is the best-seller of the moment?

It’s the Pepito. It has all the Jérôme Dreyfuss codes. It’s very flexible, which I love. A bag touches a woman’s body all day long and I’ve never understood hyper-structured bags, which get in the way of the body. For me, a bag is like a pillow that you put under your arm, it has to be comfortable. The idea is therefore flexibility, lightness and craftsmanship. Pepito has all that: it’s made in Italy, in small workshops, it’s classic. I love making classics, I hate making trendy things.

This article was translated to English using an AI tool.

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