2016: De Geus publishing house and Jaap Robben

Floris: ”I'm not very big on books, so it was no surprise that Jaap Robben wasn't on my radar when he sent me an email in 2015. He told me about his Floris van Bommel shoes that were often prominently depicted in pictures in the media. Jaap hesitantly asked whether we would be interested in a sponsoring deal. I looked into his work a bit, and replied that we weren't interested in sponsoring, but that I proposed a barter: a handwritten poem by Jaap in exchange for two pairs of shoes.

Through Jaap I got into contact with the people at De Geus publishing house. As we swapped the poem for the 2 pairs of shoes over coffee, I told them about our 'Floris favourites'. These are products I like to use myself. We buy them, I write a short personal text about them, and then we use them as business gifts or as gift items in our online Christmas store. I figured it would be great to do something similar with Jaap's book 'Birk', which by that time I had of course read.

A year later, Jaap and I went on a book store tour of the Netherlands. We took a couple of days to visit 7 book stores across the country. Those stores, as well as many other book and shoe stores, had displays with 'Floris favourites' giftboxes. Those contained Jaap's book and a warm custom wool scarf made by my favourite Dutch clothing brand 'Gentiluomo'. During those store visits, Jaap would read from his work, we'd chat with random people, and I enjoyed the crazy situation I had once again gotten myself into."

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"I looked into his work a bit, and replied that we weren't interested in sponsoring, but that I proposed a barter: a handwritten poem by Jaap in exchange for two pairs of shoes."