GLERUPS LOVES SIDEREAL HAUS
glerups arrives upon Sidereal Haus
glerups walks the line of environmental transparency. From farm-to-feet, building a company on elevated ethos is paramount for this Danish footwear brand rooted in the DNA of having respect for nature, human and animal. What first began as a passionate hobby — crafting shoes for family members in the 1970s on the farm of glerups founder Nanny Glerup — has now transcended to a global operation with headquarters in Aars, Denmark and sister office in Newfields, New Hampshire for North American distribution along with offices in New Zealand.
The trajectory of glerups is quite shocking considering Nanny, and her late husband Ove, didn’t receive a penny (or øre, really) of salary profit for the first 15 years as an official company — they put all earned monies back into the business. Quite a feat, considering operations have now expanded to Romania where Nanny and Ove’s philosophies still hold true today along of course with ethical wool sourced from Gotland sheep farmers in Denmark and high quality wool from New Zealand. Across the board, the brand is entirely vertically integrated — from the sheep to the feet — glerups owns every portion of that production.
Passion attracts passion. So, it comes as no surprise that glerups and Sidereal Haus are partnering together this winter. glerups is graciously stocking the Haus with footwear for guests to wear post skiing, snowboarding or exploring the great Teton Valley. Sidereal Haus founder Jessica Kaplan had the chance to have a transatlantic — and cross state — chat with both Christina Flindt Bjerg Albæk, glerups Head of Marketing, Communications & Commercial Activities and Kiera Ryan, the brand’s Manager of America who is based in New Hampshire. In their own words…
Christina Flindt Bjerg Albæk — glerups Head of Marketing, Communications & Commercial Activities
The beginning story of glerups is quite special. Tell me about the founders?
Christina: “It’s a true love story. Nanny Glerup, our founder, fell in love with self-sufficiency and wool. She attended a local felting course outside of Blaere where she learned how to felt a pair of slippers for her husband — he loved them and wore them everywhere. Family and friends saw them and they asked if Nanny would also make them a pair! In turn, she acquired Gotland sheep, because she needed the wool — and well, these sheep produce a lot of wool — so this hobby of creating slippers turned into two pairs a day. This same philosophy that Nanny started is our current DNA today for glerups.
In the 1993, Nanny was 53 years old and officially founded glerups the company, because she wanted to produce much more. Originally, she made an at-home production line. Her husband at the time, Ove, was working during the day and when he came home, he also helped her in the production. Ove also financially supported the family, so things could move forward. This is a brand created on pure passion, and stubbornness, and this iron lady, Nanny. She just kept on going. The fact that she worked for no money at all is inspiring.
I think around 2005, they started to slowly earn some money and Nanny finally was able to have a salary. At that same time, production was too expensive in Denmark, so we had to relocate the production to Romania. Nanny and Ove traveled to Romania and found people to partner with and built-up a factory from scratch, which is the same factory that is producing all of our glerups today. Every worker there has been educated about the original quality of the brand. It’s a story of love and passion!
Kiera Ryan — glerups Manager, America
glerups is a pure example of sustainability in both its business practices along with creating product. I believe that is the number one hallmark for the company. How does the brand maintain this integrity?
Kiera: “Christina detailed the story of Nanny and Ove quite well and it isn’t about the money — it’s about the product. It’s making a gourmet product and we aim to maintain the DNA of Nanny and Ove across the brand. And while the brand was growing, could continue to maintain the original structure of farm-to-feet. glerups has prided itself on [ethical] partnerships all the way from the beginning to the end of production. We partner with The New Zealand Merino Company to supply quality fair traded wool. The sheep are held to quite high standards and strict restrictions in their ability with thirst and when they are hungry. The government checks the program in New Zealand and produces some of the best wool in the world, but what we choose to do is partner with our farmers two years in advance of receiving the wool, forming a fixed contract of wool per kilo. This allows the farmer to have stable income. glerups tries its best to take the instability of farming off our partners, so they can focus on raising the sheep to the best of their ability and creating the best wool for glerups. They can borrow against this money — by getting a new barn or new tractor or expand on their farm — which I believe are core values of Nanny and Ove from the beginning.
As far as maintaining sustainability moving forward, we always ask, how we can reduce waste? How can we close the gap and how can we be bettering ourselves? Our lead management always asks these questions and take pride in that factor. We have no bullshit. There is nothing in the product or the production that we don’t disclose with the customer. We’ve now tried to partner with other businesses to try and reutilize some of our waste wool. There is going to be waste at some point in creating, so it’s taking the learning over the past 25 years and figuring out new and innovative ways to close that gap.
What are some examples?
Kiera: We have removed the polyester tag on the side of the shoe that used to say glerups DK. Now we use scrap leather, and we rebrand the leather leftover from our leather soles to replace that original polyester tag. On our wool waste, we’ve partnered with some companies, specifically Lübech Living which is a Danish company to do some ornaments. We found some other fun ways to repurpose that waste wool with coozies and coasters. The possibilities are endless.
glerups Shoe Style in Charcoal and Black Rubber Sole
PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Averill
glerups Slip-on style in Cranberry with Leather Sole
PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Averill
And the product itself? What makes the footwear so special?
Kiera: glerups is the perfect after-shoe. The shoes are perfect for après skiing and snowboarding. The wool regulates your body and keeps you dry and antimicrobial. It also allows to repair naturally, after pulling your foot out of a ski or snowboard boot or cycling or running shoe. It’s becoming more and more an item you can take with you anywhere. It can be the travel shoe when you go to the airport because your feet swell up in airplane. It’s not a running shoe but can be brought with you on every holiday or just put on feet after a long day. Glerups is becoming more and more, the work from home shoe because of covid.
Key styles?
Kiera: We have three styles for the U.S. We have a slip-on model, a shoe model and boot model. The slip-on is a traditional mule with the shoe model coming up just below the ankle and the boot model coming up just above the ankle. All three models are offered in either a natural leather sole or natural rubber sole in two colors; honey rubber or black rubber. And our popular colors of the shoes are Charcoal and Denim where we see the most sales, though we have seven colors in total, where we have something for everyone.
When did glerups first come to the United States? What’s that story all about?
Kiera: Allan Timm is our CEO of Glerups Inc. — he is also partners in owning the business with Jesper Glerup who is Nanny and Ove’s son. Allan met my dad, Barry Ryan, about 15-16 years ago at a sales meeting in Spain for another brand they were both working with back in the day. Allen had just started working with glerups in the very beginning; helping with sales in Scandinavia and eventually all throughout Europe. When my dad and Allan first met, they just became good buddies connecting for the first time; sharing some laughs and enjoying each other’s company. And Spanish beer…
They eventually kept the connection going and right around the time Allan was went full-time with glerups — buying into being a partner— Allan offered at that time to give my family pairs of shoes and it was quite apparent the comfort quality. For my dad, who has been working in the footwear industry for 38 years now, knew instantly it had potential to be a winner in the U.S. Barry reached out to Allan and bought 100 pairs to see how they would do — seed pairs to give to their top contacts in the footwear industry to get people to look at them and establish a relationship. It was quite a humble experience.
Things started to grow organically from my parents farm in Durham, New Hampshire. Very similarly to how Nanny and Ove started is how things progressed with distribution here in the United States. From our farm, we had a house fire in 2009, that was right around the time distribution started to get a little bit bigger, so we brought in an old shipping container to house the footwear. While my parents were rebuilding the farm, they were also driving every day to UPS or FedEx to drop off shipping packages to retailers.
Fast forward to 2015, the demand ticked up. In 2016 there was a big desire for the brand and glerups DK stepped in to help grow U.S. distribution. From there, we’ve grown from less than a million in sales a year, upwards to six to seven million a year. In 2016, 11k pairs were sold and this year alone, we’re upwards to almost 90k pairs.
glerups x Sidereal Haus
PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Averill
What are some of glerups favorite retailers in the US?
Kiera: We value all our partnerships from small to big. Starting from humble roots, it’s important to us to always remember the small retailers. All our small mom and pop stores, outdoor stores, fashion stores and furniture stores even, have done a great job in representing glerups as a whole and tell our story in the best way possible. Some of our retailers that deserve special mention are OK LA and LL Bean, who has been incredible to us. In New York City, Tip Top Shoes, which was our second customer in the US. Red’s Shoe Barn, here locally in New England. One more I’d like to call out is Shoe Mart in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which has been instrumental in growing our brand.
Why did the brand want to partner with Sidereal Haus? What’s the attraction?
Christina: “We absolutely adore you, Jessica! You are great! I remember when we first met in New York and had such a great chat at a press event. You are very passionate about what you are doing and we at glerups are very passionate about what we do. We believe in longstanding relationships. When you work from the same passionate level, it’s pretty easy to team up. You are not a typical partner for us, but since you have this house where you are very selective about the brands you are placing in your house, we thought this would be a great match! We are very proud that our glerups will be represented there! We believe this is a start of great partnership where we can grow together”
glerups as a brand has made an impact on the Jackson community. Why are the shoes perfect for someone living in Jackson?
Christina: “Though I have never been to Jackson, I do know it’s this gorgeous outdoor environment where you can do a lot of activities. The type of person that travels to Jackson values the great quality and comfortable outdoor products. Using 100% wool, you know if you’re an outdoor person, is a great product to put on your skin after you’re exercising. The way of living in Jackson matches so well to our shoes.”
What’s next in store for the glerups both stateside, Europe and globally?
Christina: “We are suiting up for the future! We are so fortunate that we have a high demand for our glerups and many loyal fans worldwide. Being we are our own factory, so we cannot source other products from other factories. We have been working on this for sometime now, but we are expanding our factory in Romania and have just finished a building that is almost 40,000 square feet. We are boosting our production facilities to be able to produce more Glerups. We have also invested in very advanced machinery that can do the felting process. Boosting seriously and investing heavily in the production facilities. We are also going ‘all in’ on digital. Our warehouse facilities will be synched to go out much faster and more efficient.
Kiera: “In the United States, we do have some pretty exciting news. We’ve purchased a 22 acre piece of land in Exeter, New Hampshire which is actually a historic shoe making town here in New England. We’re going to break ground on our new U.S. headquarters, approximately 40,000 to 50,000 square foot building to start with the option to add on an additional secondary building. Our business in the U.S. is definitely focused more on the future and being able to deliver and distribute throughout North America in a quick and timely fashion. We’re very excited to begin breaking ground this upcoming spring 2022.”
To check out more glerups styles and colors, click HERE!
