January 2025
Our first trade show. An improvised setup — bare walls, borrowed lamps, and a floor covered in tape and hope. Yet it felt right. Imperfect, but true to what THESING stands for: authentic chaos.
Louis asked me two weeks before the show: “Hey they have space for us at CIFF in Copenhagen, I think we should do it”. I was like: no f*cking way we should spend that money on a trade show – our shoes were still in production in Portugal, we had zero experience, no concept for the booth and no one knew about us. But I saw he’s serious and even I sometimes trust his gut feeling. After intense discussions we said fuck it let’s go for it. Louis came up with an idea for our 3x3m space which was basically just our two living rooms combined. We rented a van, emptied our apartments, took my couch, his sideboard, my coffee machine, his shelves and my carpet and drove from Berlin to Copenhagen. Our old friend Josh came along because there was no way we could do this alone. The ferry felt like a mini vacation and we arrived at the fair, found our spot and started unpacking, basically coming up with the layout on the spot. Curveball: our shoes were delivered directly from the factory to the fair – after setting up: still no shoes. Just before we lost our minds, the friendly danish DHL guy showed up with fresh THESING boxes and we were so relived we got pizzas and beers and called it a night.
The first day came, the fair slowly picked up, and we met a lot of new friends and partners that will show up in this journal again later. Our place became the hangout spot over the next days – making coffees (espresso martinis actually) and chatting over all kinds of things. And yeah, we also got our first clients from Germany, France and Japan. After a couple of days in our living room at CIFF and some intense evenings of networking we threw everything back into the van and made the trip back home. Copenhagen you and your people are beautiful – thanks for having us <3
Written with love by Johannes
