In 1975, a young Lorenzo Fluxà strolled through the shops on Serrano Street in Madrid with a mission: to sell a unique shoe, the Camaleón model by Camper, made of leather and canvas and with a recycled tire sole. A footwear with peasant inspiration and a unisex vocation that I tried to place among hundreds of pairs of strict Castilians. The word unisex was met with rejection at the time. “I don't know what it is, but I don't want it in my store,” they said many times to the businessman who had created a revolutionary brand within the family business founded in 1877 by his grandfather Antonio. The new seal was presented to the world with a slogan that fit the Spanish zeitgeist very well: “For a freer walk.”
Almost 50 years have passed since this tough door-to-door march. Camper is now a global brand run by Miguel Fluxà, the fourth generation of the family, with 350 stores around the world. The year 2023 ends with a historic sales record of 225 million euros, 20% more than in 2022 and 25% more than in 2019. The catalog includes 500 models and two of the most copied shoes in the world come from its workshops: the Pelotas (with a lifetime guarantee and more than 11 million pairs sold) and the Peu. “Welcome those who copy us, because they will also copy our mistakes,” Fluxà will say with a laugh at some point in this interview. And he concludes: “As a creative company, I don't admire them, but I will also tell you that they know what they are copying, only what sells well and works.”
Insoles of various sizes at the Inca.Anna Huix factory
While Javier Mariscal and Miquel Barceló showed off their campers in the '80s, Rosalía did so on Instagram in 2023 with the Kobarah sandals and Úrsula Corberó with the Tossu sneakers. Camper appears to navigate through time and is extremely flexible and intelligent. The final twist was to hire Achilles Ion Gabriel in 2019, a young Finnish designer who had worked for COS during Consuelo Castiglioni's time and for Marni, as creative director of Camperlab, their most radical label. In the middle of the pandemic, he was named creative for the entire brand. Achilles moved to Mallorca and within a year the brand landed on the wish list of the elusive Generation Z.
A colorful model from Camperlab's spring-summer collection. Anna Huix
We brought together Miguel Fluxà (48 years old), CEO of Camper, and Achilles Ion Gabriel (36), its creative director. We do it in Son Forteza, the family home in Alaró (Mallorca) which houses part of the camper offices, an organic garden and an olive grove. Fluxà welcomes us in jeans, polo and sneakers; Ion Gabriel wears a jacket and pants from Balenciaga. Solid black, and it has already been through the make-up artist's brushes.
Both seem very comfortable in their place. Mixed and shaken, the combination works. On the one hand, the radical and colorful personality of Achilles (although he wears black today because he says: “It's easier to work with colors when you wear black”), and on the other hand, the slow business genius of Fluxà, who managed to do that 40% of Camper's business is digital and in this case the word sustainability is much more than a marketing slogan. Together they have turned Camperlab, a flagship label founded to build brand image rather than sell, into a runaway commercial success. “We are in a good moment, the brand is strong because of the product and communication, but it is a quiet place of maturity.” Camper is 48 years old and in that time we have been through better and worse situations, but we have always keeping our values very strong. I think we are in an incredible moment in product innovation that has touched Generation Z. The company’s values, diversity, innovation and great openness to change have conquered the youngest people,” reflects Fluxà.
Leather and textiles in the camper workshop in Inca. Anna Huix
The Kobarah sandal, one of the models from the first Camperlab collections signed by Ion Gabriel, is perhaps one of the symbols of this connection. Fun and sustainable (this duality is possible). Unbiased and completely unisex (their size goes up to number 44). Commercial and functional. Achilles has often said that he doesn't work for museums, but so that people wear his shoes every day. But he also doesn't want to make serious and boring shoes. So to wear one of his creations you have to have confidence and attitude.
The Finnish designer Achilles Ion Gabriel. Anna Huix
Miguel set out to find him in Paris, where Ion Gabriel, a genderless pioneer, occasionally collaborated with several brands, including Marni, Sunnei and Marimekko, while also working on his own radical eponymous brand. Fluxà offered him his first “office job”. If we buy a villa with a pool as an office in the interior of Mallorca, between Sant Joan and Sineu, quiet, paradisiacal and surrounded by nature, where Achilles says he sleeps little, designs at night and starts answering emails at seven in the morning morning. She moved to the island during the pandemic, leaving her hectic Parisian life behind. “Living in Mallorca definitely helps to understand campers. The island is part of their DNA. I live in the middle of nowhere, on a farm with no neighbors, and that helps me be creative and concentrate. I travel too. I would say too much, I spend half of my time on the island and the rest around the world,” says the designer, who in five years would like to imagine taking at least one day off a week.
Detail of the production of Pelotas, Camper's best-selling model. Anna Huix
His mission, he agreed with Miguel, was to take the brand a step further, promote open, avant-garde design, develop new strategies and connect with the youngest. “That's exactly what I did. I think I've more than achieved it.” Achilles saw all the possibilities in a brand with an important multi-generational foundation and an unbiased vision that had been practicing sustainability since 2002 with campaigns like asking customers: “If you don't If you need it, don't buy it.” It was about learning to work side by side with people whose parents and grandparents had already worked at Camper.
Detail of the sole of a model from Camperlab's spring-summer collection. Anna Huix
When you see some of his designs for Camperlab, everyone wonders if these shoes are comfortable and light. Doubt offends. “I don't have to think about the technical aspects of a shoe, it's something that's very integrated into me, it's ingrained in my training, I don't have to worry about it and that allows me to focus on aesthetically Creation,” he says. Fluxà explains that getting in touch with new generations is a great triumph, but also a challenge. “We are looking for a balance: to continue to be disruptive, but without losing the connection with our core customers.”
A worker adjusts some campers in the Inca workshop. Anna Huix
We asked Fluxà what things you should never do without in a designer shoe. “You can risk almost everything except comfort, functionality and quality. Regardless of the aesthetic, our shoes are meant to be worn,” he says, pointing to his feet. “Today I am wearing the Tossu, they have a very high innovation process, are entirely made in Spain, it is a very sustainable shoe that can be almost entirely recycled and is extremely comfortable, the aesthetic is avant-garde but they are very comfortable.” ” The Tossu are Camperlab's sustainable sneakers, which consist of an inner sock and recyclable injection molded inserts.
Kobarah sandal from Camperlab's spring-summer collection, a unisex model with sizes up to 44. Anna Huix
Achilles says that it is not difficult for him to design the structure of the shoe, the complicated thing is to translate it into a sustainable model. In these four years, the company has managed to ensure that 80% of production is made from clean materials, although it is aware that it is difficult to be fully recyclable. Leather, the only material that guarantees the durability of a shoe, is the key to sustainability. 23 billion shoes are manufactured worldwide, 95% end up in landfills.
Entrance to Recamper, the camper outlet store in Inca, next to the factory.Anna Huix
How long should a pair of shoes last to be sustainable? Fluxà answers: “The ideal would be that it lasts a lifetime and can be repaired if it breaks.” It's not entirely correct to say that because we are dedicated to selling shoes, but my conclusion and that from Camper are that there is nothing more sustainable than quality, the ability to repair the product and responsible consumption. If a shoe lasts nine months longer, its environmental impact is reduced by 30%.” A shoe consists of 40 to 50 elements and is therefore difficult to fully recycle. After many experiments, Camper achieved sustainability by reducing these parts, in 2000 with the Wabi model, recycled and recyclable and with only three elements: the outer construction, the tatami insole and the sock.
Miguel Fluxà, fourth generation of the family and CEO of Camper.Anna Huix
Miguel Fluxà says that at Camper the processes are very transparent, for example the carbon footprint of each model is measured, but this is nothing new for them. “From our name – Camper means farmer – the connection to nature and the rural world was already clear. Our first model was a recycled shoe, the result of necessity, not abundance, because farmers had to make their own shoes.”
Colored threads in the brand's workshop in Inca.Anna Huix
In the camper workshops in Inca, 31 kilometers from Palma, work is underway on several fronts. The soles are sewn on a machine: “A difficult and complicated job, if you make a mistake you have to take another shoe and start again,” the workers explain to us. In another room, work is being done to personalize a customer's balls, which have been stamped with their initials. Lorenzo Fluxà comes by and examines some prototypes. The same Fluxà who managed to place his tire-soled peasant shoes in the most exclusive stores in Madrid. It seems like no time has passed here. There is no rush to create these jewels of Mallorcan shoes, but it is an illusion. Almost half a century has passed. Just look at Rosalía's feet wearing her bright orange Kobarah during her last summer in London. This is without a doubt also zeitgeist and it is also camper.
Tossu model, sustainable sneakers from Camperlab, consisting of an inner sock and recyclable inserts, formed by injection molding.Anna Huix
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