Peter Popps (1959-2021)
Self-taught shoe designer from the Netherlands, whose work is noted for its extravagant novelties. At the age of 18 he started out as one of many sales people in a shoe shop, before he became a sales manager while studying product design and architecture at night before he found his love for avant-garde and young fashion in the shoe industry. Popps got the opportunity to develop his creative mind while he worked as a sales manager, designer and buyer for Sacha, a well-known Dutch shoe company. lt all started by changing a heel and making his own colour combinations in order to get exclusive commercial high fashion collections, after that he designed special models in collaboration with other brands and developed his own collections exclusive for that company.
Due to this challenge his design skills evolved. Popps left the company to for a new opportunity for an Italian company where he became responsible for the European and American collections as stylist and product manager. During these years he learned a lot in a small sample factory, where all necessary facilities within reach, before his designs got produced in the factories. lt was very important to give the clients something new, something that didn’t exist yet. Even though the shoes had to be a commercial product there was always a surprise in the designs.
In 2003 Peter Popps started his own freelance Design Studio, because of his long career in the shoe industry it did not take long before companies that already knew his work ethic approached him and asked him as a freelancer to design exclusive collections. Over the years Peter worked as freelancer, he has grown more and more towards new innovations. What happens in the world isn’t from yesterday, tomorrow or today, it has been growing towards innovation for a while. But you have to make them your own. To show someone that something is possible you have to believe in your own ideas. lt is his destiny to exist and design somewhere between fantasy & reality at all times…
With over 25 years of experience as professional shoe designer, Peter Popps created his own artistic ‘one of a kind’ line of shoes because he never feit a stronger urge to design opposed to mainstream cultural values as they are forced on us today. People are always ready for novelties and innovations… also today.
Shoe ‘SWiNG’, photo by Tom ten Seldam.
