The market spotlight was cast on Alpargatas shares () on the eve of Christmas. The reason for a drop of close to 3% in the stock this Monday (22) does not appear to be specifically related to the company’s numbers, but the repercussion on social media of a year-end campaign launched in recent days.
After the release of an advertising piece starring actress Fernanda Torres, in which she states that she does not want people to “start the year off on the right foot”, Bolsonaro politicians, such as former federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, took to the networks to speak out. Although the video does not contain political messages – the actress states that she wants to start the year “with both feet”, in a more active stance and less subject to luck – the politician encouraged a boycott of the shoe producer.
This is just a part of the company’s century-old history, which began in 1907, in the Mooca neighborhood, in São Paulo, as a result of a partnership between Scotsman Robert Fraser and an English group. Under the name of São Paulo Alpargatas Company, the company was created to meet the demand for resistant footwear for work. The piece, called Alpargatas Roda, soon became common on coffee plantations amid the growth of the São Paulo coffee industry.
Still in 1913, the company went public on the São Paulo Stock Exchange, becoming the oldest company still listed on what is now called B3. Between the 1910s and 1920s, the company reports having been severely impacted. First, due to the difficulty of accessing raw materials during the First World War; second, with the national crisis of coffee overproduction and the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, which led to the interruption of production at Alpargatas Roda.
The winds began to change in the 1930s, when Alpargatas Roda production resumed. The company, which in the 1910s produced canvas for drying coffee and covering train carriages, also developed its first leather shoes in the 1930s.
During the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, an armed movement led by São Paulo to overthrow the provisional government of Getúlio Vargas, the company even produced tents, uniforms and backpacks for military use. In the midst of the Second World War, between the end of the 1930s and the mid-1940s, the company developed Brim Coringa, a fabric used in the first models of Brazilian jeans.
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Almost all of the shoes launched by Alpargatas would become iconic in the Brazilian imagination from then on. In 1962, the company launched Havaianas, “inspired by a typical Japanese sandal called Zori”, according to its official page. The product became such a success that, in the 1980s, it was included as one of the items in Brazilians’ basic food basket.
Before Brazil’s commercial opening popularized international footwear brands in the country, Alpargatas was also an important sporting goods brand. In the year of the Brazilian team’s third world championship, 1970, a hybrid between sneakers and football boots developed by the company. At the end of the decade, Alpargatas would launch the Topper brand and buy Rainha.
In the 1990s, in the midst of Brazil’s commercial opening to the world, the company decided to relaunch Havaianas — this time, in search of the global market. According to records on the company’s official channel, the shoes would set a record of 100 million pairs sold. The movement would be further enhanced in the 2000s, with the opening of operations in the United States and offices in Spain, the United Kingdom, France and Italy.
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And the company went shopping. In the 1990s, Alpargatas licensed the Timberland and Mizuno brands. In 2007, it acquired the Pernambuco company Dupé and 60% of Topper Argentina. In the following decade, in 2014, the company also acquired 60% of Osklen’s capital.
After the acquisition cycle, it was time for divestments. As of the mid-2010s, Alpargatas divested itself of Topper’s operations in Brazil and Argentina, as well as Rainha and Timberland’s licensing. Osklen entered the portfolio of the footwear multinational in a 60% stake purchase. In 2021, the company would acquire premium American brand Rothy’s.
