Legacy • EST 1992

‘Was het niet gisteren dat ik aankwam hier, ik was achttien jaar jong’, echoes through the speakers of The Royal Treatment atelier. The music, but above all the words of fellow Amsterdammer Thomas Acda, inevitably take me back to the beginning.

In a flash, I step through the past three decades in my mind and realise that the fire has still not gone out. My passion for repairing men’s shoes with leather soles — a passion that borders on fanaticism — still flares up every day.

Stronger still, since the summer of 2025, my passion has found new momentum. Women’s shoes and women’s boots with leather soles are, from now on, approached with the same attention, precision, and respect for what had been restored before.

As an eleven-year-old boy, I could never have imagined that. You walk into a shoemaker’s shop because you need to call home to say you will be later back from school than usual because of a flat bicycle tyre. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was standing there with shoes in my hands to be repaired.

Seven years later, I successfully completed my apprenticeship. After gaining experience during those years and with seven renowned employers, the time had come to open my own business on Jekerstraat in Amsterdam-Zuid in early January 1992. Now — more than thirty-four years later — known under the name The Royal Treatment.

No coincidence. No trend. A lifetime of craftsmanship.