Big shoes to fill

What do you think of the trend toward gender-neutral styles?

Birkenstock is one of the driving forces behind this movement. Our core styles - Madrid, Arizona, Gizeh, Boston and even Mayari - are basically gender-neutral styles, simply because our customers act like that. Again, it's unintended, it simply happens, but we respect our customers and support them by launching a wide range of product variants, picking up a rich variety of colors and materials.

What are your target groups in China and how big is your team here?

We have identified several consumer groups in China. For mainline products, the core group is made up of people who appreciate quality and functionality, stay informed about the latest fashion trends and love to mix-and-match to create their own style. For collaborative products, we mainly target the next generation of fashionistas who set the trends. The brand has been in China for several years using local distributors, but last year we started building a dedicated team here. We have a few key roles here currently and are recruiting more people to strengthen the team.