story

My name is Woei. I'm 48 years old, born in Surinam, living in The Netherlands and this is my shop. The shop has been around for 14 years now. We work together tightly with our community. 

The core of the community are dj's, artists, designers and photographers. These are people who have a good drive and are not in it for the money, but really do it for the love. Something we live by as well.

In the 80's I started skateboarding which exposed me to American brands that we didn't have. We didn't have internet then so we got all our info from magazines. That really influenced my personal taste which is reflected in the store.

My relationship with Nike initially started with Air Max. I was a real Air Max junkie. I had the Air Max 1, 90, 180, those were my core sneakers. But yeah,

we're 14 years further now and i became a little more openminded. I wear less Air Max, but started wearing more Jordans, Dunks, Footscapes and that became my thing. Plus I heard there's a new BW coming out soon. In my years as a entrepreneur

we've experienced some really fun things. For example, the WOEI 1 year anniversary party which was epic, just crazy. We've done like a thousand releases and what I personally think is dope are my Kick In The Door series on Youtube. I'd say check it out.

I'm pretty proud of the fact that we're an inclusive store. We sell sneakers to everyone. From plumbers to moms who bring their kids and from students to kids who tear up their shoes. Rotterdam is very

multicultural, we have 176 nationalities and I sell to each and every one of them. WOEI is starting to outgrow its current location. The store is simply getting to small for our business so we're moving. In November we'll have WOEI 2.0. But WOEI will always be WOEI.

We will always sell sneakers, we will always collaborate and we will always be in Rotterdam. So drop by!

Talking Shop

Woei