Anouk Moerman

Marianne Sasse van Ysselt

Marianne van Sasse van Ysselt

René van Geer

David Kuiper

Iris van 't Wout

Mila Stolk

Secrid collaborates with Dutch artist Maayke Schuitema on five Limited Edition Miniwallets

SECRID x Maayke 

Secrid X Maayke

Secrid x Maayke

How Secrid helps Sheltersuit Foundation spread the story of homelessness.

People helping people

People Helping People

sheltersuit

Luc van Hoeckel 

Super-
Local

More interviews

Luc van Hoeckel designs solutions for the 90% of the world's population without access to decent basic facilities.

Secrid Talent Podium - Super Local

Secrid Talent Podium - Superlocal

An ode to love and art

Secrid X 
Franky Sticks 


Stories

Secrid collaborates with artist Franky Sticks on a Limited Edition Cardprotector featuring three original art prints. The synergy of two creative hearts results in a creative journey framed by art, focused on quality, and punctuated by creative freedom.

Secrid x Franky Sticks

franky-sticks

Axel and Alexis Gómez Ortigoza

CELIUM™ BY POLYBION

Celium™ is a customizable bio-textile that might well become the new gold standard for fashion, footwear, sportswear, and automotive applications. Polybion is a new company that found a way to produce this versatile and natural material made of cellulose, cultivated with bacteria that eat agricultural waste.

Secrid Talent Podium - Celium

Secrid Talent Podium - Celium™ By Polybion

For 15 years, our teams in sheltered workshops have been central to Secrid’s wallet-assembly operations. 

Valuing capabilities: Sheltered workshops and Secrid

Our colleagues there need tailored environments to be able to work, because they have autism, for example, or a physical disability.

Valuing Capabilities

Paige Perillat Piratoine, Catherine Euale, Nada Elkharashi, and Sequoia Fischer

ElectricSkin

Electric Skin is a speculative idea that can change how we relate to daily electronic objects, such as our phones. A team of female biodesigners use bacteria that naturally produce electrical proteins for use in electronics. It could be possible to make compostable electronics by integrating these proteins into algae-based biomaterials.

Secrid Talent Podium - Electric Skin

Dr. Muhammed Ali Örnek & Suat Batuhan Esirger

Forest
Guard

ForestGuard is an advanced wildfire prevention system. This device detects forest fires within the first 15 minutes and helps communities worldwide to protect their valuable forests and natural resources. An integrated monitoring system can help to manage a fire before it starts or turns into a full-blown fire.

Secrid Talent Podium - ForestGuard

Secrid Talent Podium - Forestguard

Jess Redgrave

ClimaFibre

Sunflowers can help to reduce our dependence and the environmental damage of cotton in the fashion industry.

Secrid Talent Podium - ClimaFibre

Frans van Rooijen en Michael Sailer

Fungi 
Force

Entrepreneur Frans van Rooijen and scientist Dr. Michael Sailer are launching a varnish made from natural raw materials.

Secrid Talent Podium - Fungi Force

Reinier Bosch and Marloes van Heteren

Solarix

Solarix designs and produces aesthetic solar panels as façade cladding.

Secrid Talent Podium - Solarix

Hedwig Heinsman, Martine de Wit & Hans Vermeulen

Aectual

Aectual offers a fully circular interior design solution, from furniture to wall panels and ceilings. Their 3D printed products are made from recycled waste streams and plant-based materials, with no waste produced during the manufacturing process.

Secrid Talent Podium - Aectual

Secrid Talent Podium — Aectual

Huub Looze & Margreet van Uffelen

Omlab

Huub Looze and Margreet van Uffelen create items such as embankment tiles and birdhouses that help restore soil and biodiversity after use.

Secrid Talent Podium — Omlab

Doreen Westphal

Resty

More Interviews

Designer Doreen Westphal and entrepreneur Ruud Zanders are turning vegetable waste from Dutch farmers into pure and healthy food. Operating under the name Resty, they process rejected mushroom stalks and misshapen tomatoes into delicious plant-based burgers and sausages.

Secrid Talent Podium — Resty

Milou Voorwinden

Studio Milou Voorwinden

Milou Voorwinden is innovating the existing fashion and textile industry by developing 3D weaving techniques.

Secrid Talent Podium — Studio Milou Voorwinden

Pauline van Dongen

Suntex

Pauline van Dongen has developed a lightweight, solar-powered textile called SUNTEX.

Secrid Talent Podium — Suntex

Boey Wang

Haptics of Cooking

Boey (Bo) Wang is dedicated to creating fully inclusive products for performing everyday tasks.

Secrid Talent Podium — Haptics of Cooking

Lotte Douwes 

Material Matter

Lotte Douwes transforms ceramic waste into new high-quality tableware and interior products. Her mission is to make the entire production process of porcelain and pottery circular. Because while the plate in your cupboard and that cup on your desk may seem ordinary, they are made from precious pieces of earth.  

Meaningful Matter

Secrid Talent Podium — Meaningful Matter

Luisa Kahlfeldt

Sumo
Baby

Luisa Kahlfeldt markets a high-performance diaper that reduces a baby's diaper use from about 5,000 to 25 diapers.

Secrid Talent Podium - Sumo Baby

Kimia Amir-Moazami

Vor-
Koster

To combat food waste, Kimia Amir-Moazmi is working on a product that allows consumers to see for themselves whether food is still safe to eat.

Secrid Talent Podium - Vorkoster

You decide where
your money goes

Continue reading

For Green Friday, Secrid works with five creatives on a collaborative artwork to inspire change and collectively reflect on the power of choosing where your money goes.

green friday 2022

Our customers and retailers desired a slim and modular way to carry coins and other small essentials with their Secrid wallets. Appreciating this need, we initiated the development of Coinpocket.

Coinpocket: the next evolution for all our wallets

A modular way to carry coins and other small essentials within Secrid wallets.

Coinpocket: The Next Evolution

Functional, high-quality products that are made to last.

the search for lasting materials

The Bandwallet TPU is innovative and durable, inspired by workwear and designed with strong seamless welding. Functionality and aesthetics literally merge in the new Bandwallet TPU.

The Search for Lasting Materials

How it
all started

The history of Secrid actually begins on 4 May 1979. The day Marianne van Sasse van Ysselt (14) and René van Geer (17) meet and start dating. 

Start

After a short flirtation with career opportunities as a kindergarten teacher and chemist, Marianne and René both opt for creative courses; Marianne in Fashion (Fashion Academy and Charles Montagne) and René Industrial Design (TU Delft).

Creativity

In 1986, they win a design competition and are invited to visit the design studios of Sir Terence Conran, the founder of the Habitat store in London. This trip turns into an unforgettable weekend during which and it becomes clear to them what they want to achieve 'someday' in their lives: their own creative studio and their own consumer brand.

Habitat contest

In addition to his work at the NHTM, René does works part-time freelance. When his first employee joins, his freelance practice changes into a design studio. This firm is named DSI (Design & Styling for Industry) on 1 January 1990. Marianne was expected to join later that year.

Design studio

Marianne does indeed join the studio, albeit a little later than expected, combining the unique mixture of fashion styling and technological expertise. For many customers with design assignments this turns out to be a valuable approach, including the well-known manufacturer of child seats Maxi Cosi. Other customers are KPN, Satcom, Sitecom and Quooker.

Design & Styling for Industry 

 DSI receives several assignments from the world of banking, including several balance readers for a new type of bank card that will be introduced that year (these are cards that will become known under the names Chipper and Chipknip). This also requires a new type of wallet. Based on this insight they designed the Bodycard, a patented mechanism for a plastic card holder that protects the cards against bending and breaking.

Bodycard

 The design of the Bodycard marks the first step into the world of cardholders and wallets. Our adventure as wallet makers starts when we first apply for a patent for our cardholder, dated 11 August 1995. Since then, we have been active in this field, closely following the developments of other companies and continuing to lead the way with innovations, resulting in five registered patents.

The first patent

The agency rebrands itself as SPIRID in 2001, because René and Marianne want to indicate more clearly that they work from a spiritual viewpoint in the field of Industrial Design.

SPIRID

Eight years after its introduction, the design of the Bodycard became old-fashioned. They design a new model, in line with the style of the Nokia phones, with rounded shapes. The cardholder is also given a new name: Secrid, a variation on the new name of the design agency.

Secrid

The 2008 financial crisis hits the design studio hard. Almost all assignments come to a standstill. It is fortunate that SPIRID feels the impact of the crisis a little earlier than other agencies. Because of that all employees are able to find work elsewhere. The downsizing of the design studio – from ten employees to just one – is completed relatively quick and painless. Paul van Diepen is the only employee who remains at SPIRID.

Crisis

Around Christmas 2008, René, Marianne and Paul decide to stop all the activities of the design studio and focus on their own product. Bankruptcy of the design studio is narrowly prevented and turns into a dormant BV. Because they already had more than ten years of experience with the Bodycard and realising that during this economic crisis nobody really develops new products, they decided to focus on the development of 'the best card holder in the world'. This time the design is inspired by the iPhone, which was introduced in 2007, in terms of contours and choice of materials. Apple changed the world of design by working with high quality materials: metal and glass instead of plastics. This inspired Secrid to think of an aluminium cardholder as the successor to the first Secrid.

Cardprotector 

René and Marianne started this project in the middle of the economic crisis. No bank is willing to help them and investors only want to borrow money in exchange for 50% of the shares. They want to remain independent at all costs. During the first years they are dependent on loans from friends and family and accommodating payment terms from suppliers. During their 20 years in design, René and Marianne built an extensive network of manufacturing friends and some are willing to support them by investing in production tools. Privately, however, it is a rough time. Sometimes they depend for their food on packages from the food bank which they receive from their friend Mirsada. 

Help from family and friends

 Since the beginning of the 21st century, almost the entire small leather goods industry has disappeared from the Netherlands to the Far East. Everyone seems convinced that this type of industry is no longer possible in the Netherlands. We consciously opt for local production and for product design that makes this possible. We choose good working conditions and production processes that are as clean as possible. By producing locally, we can better communicate with our suppliers. This not only improves the process, but also the ability to guarantee the best quality possible. We are proud to work together with social enterprises for nearly all our assembly work.

Made in Holland

The Dutch government introduces the OV-chipcard, the first card with RFID-technology which will be used extensively by consumers. This technology enables the activation of these cards, enabling reading and even withdrawing money from accounts linked to these cards. According to research institute TNO, these RFID-cards can be activated and read using specialised equipment from a distance of 20 metres, without the owner of the card knowing about it. Also, soon after the introduction of the public transport chipcard, researchers from the Radboud University in Nijmegen publish disturbing reports describing that the software of the OV-chipcard can easily be hacked. The press jumps on this story and consumers are looking for solutions that protect them against the risks described, regardless of whether these theoretical risks actually occur. At that time, Secrid's Cardprotector is the only product that protects RFID cards and therefore appears in all press publications. TNO confirmed this protective effect in an independent study. Free PR for Secrid and a much-needed extra push during Secrid's market introduction.

Introduction OV-chipcard

Technology and fashion come together beautifully with the introduction of the Miniwallet. More importantly we expand our wallet assortment to put forth our mission: increase awareness that everything and everyone is part of a larger whole and that small acts can have a large impact. With every transaction a consumer makes a decision: “Where does my money go?” This way, all consumers in the world combined manage an incredibly large cash flow. This cash flow shapes the world we live in. To ensure the survival of our world, these consumers have to become aware of the effects of this cash flow. Is your money ending up in the pocket of a company that respects people, animals and the planet? Which companies do you support?

Introduction Miniwallet 

The Secrid Cardprotector wins the prestigious Red Dot Design Award. We are very proud of this accomplishment.

Red Dot Design Award

Move to our Heartquarters (HQ)

 In October 2019 we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Cardprotector. During this decade, production has grown to more than two million units per year and the eight millionth unit has just been sold.

Cardprotector 10 years

B Corp 

 We emerged healthy from the pandemic and have now fully reimbursed the government's corona support package. Not being able to travel to trade shows gave us more time for reflection. Retailer relationships are at the heart of our business, but with many shops closing, it is also important to reach out directly to consumers for a financially sustainable future.

Covid survived 

We are living in dynamic times and with more than 100 employees we are working towards the future of Secrid. Internationally we have more than 8,000 retail outlets and millions own our pocket-sized essentials. We have the ambition to expand our pocketwear category, and will be more engaged in spreading our thinking over the years: for example, the Industrial Evolution. Instead of "cheaper and worse", newly developed products should structurally be "better, more durable and more valuable" than their predecessors. Secrid is both our testing ground and our platform to share this thinking with the rest of the world.

Future 

Secrid is a family business and 100% owned by the Van Geer family. The company was founded by René van Geer and Marianne van Sasse van Ysselt.

How It All Started

how it all started

Emy Bensdorp

Claybens

Emy Bensdorp is developing a technique to transform clay soil contaminated by PFAS into 100% clean bricks.

Secrid Talent Podium - Claybens

Design Dilemmas

Secrid makes Cardwallets, but Secrid is much more than that. We also have a message to share. We want to make people aware of the power of good design for a sustainable future.

Secrid Innovation Lab

Mujō’s co-founders Juni Neyenhuys and Annekathrin Grüneberg

Mujō

How can we make sure that the materials of today do not become the waste of tomorrow? This is the idea behind mujō, a Berlin-based start-up that develops biodegradable packaging from seaweed. 

Seven Questions With Mujō

What Design Can Do - Mujō

A better world starts in your pocket

Made in 
Holland

By 2009, the leather industry had practically abandoned the Netherlands in favour of low-income countries. Secrid brought this industry back to our home country. 

made in Holland

Head of Communications & Branding, Davidson Leite

Resortecs

Textile recycling made easy. This is the promise that makes Resortecs one of the most exciting start-ups in the fashion industry today.

What Design Can Do - Resortecs

Balena’s Head of Operations, Tzachi Shem Tov

Balena

Balena is a material science company that is working to change the footwear industry. 

What Design Can Do - Balena

The Secrid
Brandstore

You'll find our first Secrid Brandstore at the Meent nr. 2. Since the start of Secrid, we have been dreaming of having our own Brandstore.

The First Secrid Brandstore

the first Secrid brandstore

Our patented mechanism, designed by Secrid's co-founder, inspired by his father.

The Power
of small

The Power of Small

the power of small

Our Team

Growth is one of Secrid's core values. Working from your strengths and developing your talents are key. Our team is built on personalities: different backgrounds connected by creativity, modesty and appreciation for each other.

our team

Our 
Heartquarters

In 2009, three people started the Secrid adventure: Marianne, René and Paul. Thirteen years later, our creative family consists of more than 100 colleagues and we keep growing steadily.

Our Heartquarters 

our heartquarters

Secrid is 
a B Corp

While too many companies strive only to make as much profit as possible at all costs, B Corporations primarily look at the consequences for people, nature and the planet.

Secrid is a Certified B Corp 

b-corp

The Industrial
Evolution

Instead of ‘cheaper and worse’, new products must be developed which are intrinsically ‘better, more sustainable and more valuable’ than products that came before.

The Industrial Evolution

the industrial evolution

Karel van ‘t Wout

Meet the community - Karel and his Secrid

It is such a useful product and I use it every day. Every morning I take it out and every evening I put it away again.