Between The Lines 017 : Neutra
Building A Footwear
Brand With Neutra
Words: Sian Lori
Neutra, launched in 2021, is a footwear brand fresh out of Amsterdam. Helmed by business-brains and childhood friends Francois Duret and Mathias Courdier, Neutra redesigns your favourite silhouettes with sartorial simplicity. With expertise in consumer trends, Neutra looks back to styles that have withstood the test of time, reimagining classics for the future through a considered lens of quality and craftsmanship. It’s about timelessness, in style and substance: footwear that physically lasts for a long time and footwear you want to keep wearing.
Initially meeting in middle-school in France, the duo reconnected when their paths crossed again in Amsterdam in 2004. At the time, Francois was not long graduated from a marketing degree, and found himself working at Salomon in the action sport category. Starting as an internship, this early experience with now fashion-favourites Salomon led Francois to a career with not one, but two of footwear’s main players: Adidas and Nike. He was Senior Category Manager at Adidas in the late aughts before eventually ending up as Merchandising Director at Nike, focusing upon the brand’s top selective distribution. He spent close to seven years with the world’s leading sports brand, immersed in the big collaboration projects; “the pinnacle of retail” as Francois puts it.
Mathias, on the other hand, made his name in trading in the US market. With his own businesses already under his sleeve, he was eager to translate his successes into more projects and, re- connecting in the notoriously innovative, creative hub of Amsterdam, it felt natural for the pair to marry their knowledge; in business, in consumer markets, and, most importantly, in footwear. There were a lot of conversations, starting as early as 2014, explained Mathias, but it finally "came to a point and we just said ok let's go”. All that was missing was that creative link: someone that could encapsulate the vision of the duo before the samples were ready, someone who understood street culture and could put pen to paper. That’s where Bertrand Aznar came in. After a fair share of digital meetings with the illustrator, they invited him to visit Amsterdam for a week and he never left, laughs Mathias. Now the Creative Director for the brand, Bertrand shared "an instant connection” and it’s this that lends itself to an organic design process. “When it comes to design, we speak the same language, we share a lot of common references; whether its furniture, cars, vintage finds” explain Francois, “it works well”.
Despite no formal design training, Francois’ root to a footwear brand isn’t entirely untraditional. At Nike, he fostered a unique perspective of the market, understanding what translates to consumers, the building of brand universes and the patterns and effects of product hype and the resell scene. It’s this understanding that sets the brand apart from others on the market. “There was a shift where people started moving back towards well-made, timeless silhouettes - take Birkenstocks, Clarks, Timberlands” and these silhouettes have remained in the zeitgeist for a long-time, especially given the rapid current of modern trends. “We felt like there was a gap in the market; even sneaker heads want things that are well-made and will-last” believes Francois. Working together, Francois and Mathias set out to create a brand that would be able to leverage some sneaker heritage and celebrate that historical narrative with elevated detail and craft. “We’re borrowing the approach of the automobile industry, or watches, or sunglasses”, from high-tops to tennis styles, 70s Japanese runners, Neutra is the intersection “between sneaker culture and people that are not dressing from the feet up”. Nodding to popular sneakers of the past, whilst prioritising attention to detail, carefully sourced materials and strong relationships with local production, “it’s about good design” says Francois, it’s “about quality.”
Quality, to Neutra, is not just defined by the standards of a product, “it’s the quality of the overall output” and its effects. “We share the point of view that the world would be better if value was split differently along the supply chain”. Working with manufacturers in their home country of France, the brand maintains a tight supply chain, in a democracy that promises fair wages and employee benefits, giving value to every individual involved in the design process. Collaboration is a crucial factor in the problem-solving, efficiency and innovation for any modern brand, but especially for a small brand new to footwear development. “We try to seal real partnerships with everyone we work with, whether it’s factories, our quality leather suppliers, or other brands” explains Francois. Simply put, Neutra wouldn't want to work with someone they don't want to have lunch with; good people, with good values are the core of the brand.
It’s this approach that led Neutra to collaborate with Amsterdam’s own Byborre. The project of our good friend and textile whizz Borre Akkersdijk, Byborre is an innovation studio that produces sophisticated, functional and beautiful fabrics while delivering an optimistic vision of the fashion industry: one that’s characterised by efficient, accessible, responsible production. “We click on a personal level, aligned in our values and vision to make the industry cleaner, and better” says Francois. Their work together began with self-confessed “camo-geek” Bertrand’s experimental pattern design transformed into a 3D textile. This textile is now integrated into Neutra’s new Hakone Trainer while a long-term collaboration with Byborre is under-way, solidifying Neutra’s design language and approach. There’s a marriage of the past and future that runs throughout the brand’s DNA. The company blends traditional French production - working with a century-old factory, with decades of expertise that's been passed on - with Byborre’s modern technology. On the one hand there’s 200-year old wooden machines then there’s Byborre’s repurposed circular knitting machines, once used for mattress textile development now with highly customised functioning. Neutra have nurtured an equally strong relationship with rubber-experts Vibram. It is undeniably exciting to mix these approaches, to push all capacities, to see the outcomes. That’s the benefit of working with like-minded people, with those that wholly match the brand’s level and care for detail: it’s trust. It is of course a challenge, at times, to work with factories who perhaps aren’t fully-versed in modern footwear - where wrap-soles feels like a difficult task - and there’s limitations to what we the brand can achieve within their French set-up but there’s still the ability to be “semi-progressive” says Mathias. Neutra isn’t about being wild or causing a huge stir in the footwear scene, it’s about staying consistent in this scene.
With such strong core values, other brands would undoubtedly be moving sustainability to the forefront of their marketing. However, Neutra “would never claim to be a sustainable brand, as soon as you manufacture you cannot be sustainable”. For Francois and Mathias, it’s more about promoting considered consumption, which makes sense if their products can withstand the test of time. It’s the deeper reason as to why the brand is mindful about their collaborators, mindful in every step of the process. There’s an element of circularity to their practices with their leather suppliers, as they set out to reuse the scraps, and it’s a methodology they plan to expand upon moving forward, working with the likes of experimental up-cycler Helen Kirkum. Neutra also plans to move in the direction of a platform that celebrates the work of others, whether its a local guitar shop owner or candle-maker, all that matters is that there’s a connection there. Producing earnest content and promoting other creatives, there’s a subtle suggestion of a bigger dream for the brand, of feeding their efforts back into their communities. Nevertheless, they’re not a brand that cares for empty promises. “Everyone can talk a big game but doing is what really counts” explains Francois. Whether we’ll see them start a local running club or donate their profits, when the time is right, we’re pretty sure the Neutra guys will leverage their business for good.
For the current moment in time, they plan to make a humble contribution to the footwear space with carefully considered and crafted lasting product while maintaining and nurturing their collaborative approach. If this is the first you’re hearing of the brand, you might start to see them a little more, “in media, in stores, on people's feet”, as they are more than ready “crank up the volume” on the project. Neutra, it seems, is defined by finding a common ground for all of its ideas and collaborators; a mutual territory in which the past and future, classicism and modernism, craftsmanship and new technology can belong equally. It’s about establishing the right balance and a kind of neutrality, just as the name would suggest, and it is the seamless bridging of these conflicting ideas that adds to the timelessness of the project, as these worlds merge to create designs that are simple but effective. Neutra even has the logo to match: minimal and familiar, all while tiptoeing on the new.