What it does every year for its flagship brand Havaianas, the highly successful DIY event “MYOH (Make Your Own Havaianas),” Terry SA just did for French shoes Bensimon, at least for a day.
Anne Arcenas Gonzalez led her company, Terry SA, to mark Bensimon’s second year in the country with a DIY event last week at the Common Thread boutique, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell. Celebrities and shoppers got to personalize their tennis sneakers with various art and craft materials.
Classic tennis pairs were blinged out, stitched on, painted on, distressed, beaded on, to push what Gonzalez refers to as “ownership” of your pair, to have liberty to do whatever you want with it. It’s all about the concept of “owning it.”
Bensimon is a well-known Paris brand established by brothers Serge and Yves Bensimon some 30 years ago. The business started with tennis sneakers, and has since expanded into a lifestyle brand.
The sneakers are basic canvas-and-rubber affairs, and loved by the French for their no-nonsense, threadbare casual style. The look is easy and straightforward, the kind that doesn’t try hard to impress. Not much different from Parisians. They don’t try to be, they just are.
“The reception the past year was quite encouraging,” Gonzalez said. “We launched the basics first for those who travel and already knew the brand. For
the ones who aren’t necessarily familiar with Bensimon, they are more attracted to the prints and new colors. We’re lucky because we’re coming in when there are so many offerings for sneakers, and not everybody has use for or look good in trainers, so there’s room for us.”
Totally casual
Gonzalez, who introduced the Brazilian flip-flops brand Havaianas in the Philippines, said Bensimon complements their company’s portfolio: “still totally casual, but a closed shoe, because not everybody just wants to wear flip-flops.”
It took a bit of doing to make Filipinos understand the brand, she said. Bensimon aren’t your typical impeccable-looking footwear. There’s a certain grunginess to it, the colors at times uneven, the edges of its molded rubber soles not quite neatly trimmed.
But this is Bensimon’s signature, what it refers to as “perfectly imperfect.”
“It’s a bit distressed so it’s different,” Gonzalez said. “It’s the imperfections that make it perfect. People are beginning to understand that. Before, those who don’t know the brand say, ‘Why is the finish not perfect? Why is the color different?’ The sales staff has to explain.
“You know how the French are, they have this whole chic thing going, but not [a manufactured kind of] perfect. It’s a little disheveled. And it’s Bensimon’s trademark. They did [the polished finish] and it didn’t click. I hate to use the word hipster, but these young people now, when they go to music festivals, for instance, they like things that look worn.”
Bensimon is priced comparable to other popular sneakers brands, starting at P2,095/pair for adult size (kids’ style start at P1,295), though its distribution so far is still relatively limited: in the company-owned multibrand store Common Thread at Greenbelt 5 and Power Plant, Rustan’s and Shoe Salon branches.