Forty-year-old family leather brand Arma goes international

For a long time, buying an Arma leather jacket was a sensible choice rather than a fashionable one.

You got good leather at a fair price, and the jacket was meant to last for years.

Today the same Amsterdam brand is worn by international stars such as Kendall Jenner and sold by major retailers including Le Bon Marché and Selfridges.

The attention has not come from a new label. Arma is a family business with forty years of experience in leather.

Maral Aykaz (34), the founder’s daughter, runs the creative side, and her brother Arden Aykaz (35) is managing director.

Speaking from the company’s office in Badhoevedorp, Maral calls the international success “surreal”.

“To an outsider it might look like success just blew in our direction,” she says.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.” She says everything they do now rests on the company her father spent more than forty years building.

From tannery floor cleaner to founder

Founder Aram Aykaz grew up in an Armenian family in the mountains of Turkey.

After the family moved to Istanbul, he left school without finishing and took a job cleaning floors at a tannery.

He paid close attention to the work around him, and a few years later he told his boss he wanted to set up on his own.

His boss laughed and told him he would never pull it off.

He proved him wrong. Before he turned twenty, Aram had built a strong network in the local leather trade.

He then moved to the Netherlands and in 1985 founded Arma with three business partners, with the aim of making a leather jacket for everyone.

“You could get a good jacket from 200 euros,” says Maral. “In the beginning the brand focused mainly on men’s items.

A women’s collection was added later.”

Children grew up in the business

Maral and Arden spent much of their childhood summers at the office.

They started out cleaning and tidying up, and later helped with logistics, styling, production and finance.

Their mother also works in the company and looks after the finances.

When Maral was 22 and still a student, she came in for a few days to cover for a marketing colleague who was ill.

The few days turned into three a week, then four, and finally a permanent job.

“My brother and I knew from day one that this is where we’d end up.”

A sharper focus on luxury

The siblings formally took over the leadership two years ago.

In the Netherlands, Arma was by then firmly linked to the classic leather jacket.

They did not want to throw away what their father had built, but they did want a clearer direction, aimed at “beautiful, luxurious products”.

Much of what they needed was already there. Many of the jackets now drawing international interest were already in the range.

What changed was the presentation, with new photography, new colours and a different approach to styling.

The breakthrough came through a neighbour of Maral’s, who turned out to run Parrot, an international fashion agency whose labels include Wandler, Bernadette and Lisa Yang.

When it emerged that Arma’s Paris showroom was in the same building as Parrot’s, he saw the collection up close and made them an offer.

From the following season Parrot handled Arma’s sales.

“All the names we’d dreamed of, Net-A-Porter, for example, had placed orders,” says Maral. “We simply couldn’t believe it.”

Factory in Turkey and a pop-up in Amsterdam

The family’s own factory in Turkey, which employs around 125 people, gives Arma an advantage.

Samples can be made quickly and new materials tested, such as nylon linings that help a jacket survive a Dutch downpour.

The siblings say growth is not their aim for the coming years.

“The challenge is to reach new people without losing what the company has built,” says Maral.

From Friday 9 October, Arma will run a two-week pop-up at Pauw on the Van Baerlestraat, where visitors can see, feel and try on the jackets.

If trying on Arma’s jackets at Pauw puts you in the mood for more, carry on through a few of the city’s favourite boutiques.

Source: Het Parool