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The Dutch leather industry’s greatest success story TEXT: ANNA VILLELEGER & ELLA PUT
In 2008, Dutch design brand Secrid approached a small workshop called Made In Holland Leather with a simple request: their recently developed Cardprotector needed a high quality leather exterior. At that time, Made In Holland Leather had no idea it would end up being one of the main manufacturers for a revolutionary new wallet.
Innovative design Compact in size and surprisingly large in storage capacity, Secrid wallets fit every pocket, and are available in an array of elegant styles and colours. Merging fashion, industrial design, functionality, and form, they allow for the ideal daily accessory. With such a slick design and a patented mechanism that allows for sliding out cards 12 | Issue 52 | April 2018
in one simple motion, it is no surprise that production rapidly increased from 10,000 wallets in 2012 to one million in 2017. From the start, Secrid has designed in a way that ensures local production is possible. Founders René van Geer and Marianne van Sasse van Ysselt admit that many people thought they were crazy when they initially discussed working with the manufacturer Made In Holland Leather, which has become a key link in the 200-member Secrid production chain. The designer couple were asked: why not manufacture your products in one of the lower-cost countries overseas? Yet thanks to their years of experience producing in Asia for their own design
agency, René and Marianne knew that the seemingly low costs of factories overseas could be misleading. For example, there are often hidden costs such as transport, long delivery times and insufficient quality control.
Putting people first Convinced of the benefits of producing their product on Dutch soil, Secrid reflected on the design process to ensure production ran as smoothly as possible. People, the environment, and product quality are all central to Secrid’s production process, and people who have a difficult time finding a job are given an opportunity to grow within the company. Secrid has a strong vision on local production and providing good working conditions, an ethos