 Historie of Clarijs and the panniers
The company was founded in Middelburg (Zeeland) in 1948 by the two brothers Cor and Sjaak Clarijs. Long before that, their father was already in the handcraft business as you can see at the picture below. He was a Cartwright and also covered the seats of the carriages as well as many other things.
At first they started to make saddles and harness for horses and many other things from leather for the farmers in Zeeland. With the rise of automobiles there was less work in the leather business and they started to make sails and covers for boats.
After Sjaak Clarijs died, two suns of Cor Clarijs, Cor Jr. and Frank, joined the business of their father and the company became quite famous in the world of water sports.
After Cor Jr. left the company because of health problems, the stepdaughter of Frank Clarijs, Diana Koppenol joined the company.
Cor Sr. is now (2009) 81 years old and still works behind the sewing machine, helping Frank and Diana.
The Panniers
It started about 30 years ago, in wintertime when business was always a bit more quiet, Cor Sr. started to make a few panniers from some residual material from the PVC-cloth for the covers of the boats. He made the straps from leather with iron buckles. He new how a pannier looked like because he had repaired some of the â old fashionâ canvas panniers.
Some of the regular customers bought a pannier and where so surprised by the strength of the it that they advised others to buy one too. They became such a success that they had to make a stock of about 20 panniers a year! The colours where post-war, like black, dark brown, dark blue, grey and dark green.
After a few years the straps where no longer made from leather but made from the strong PVC material. Customers made themselves a reinforcement for the bottom of the pannier with a wooden plank. These approximately 23 years old panniers are still seen in Zeeland. People in Zeeland are famous for being economical!
Frank Clarijs took a big interest in the panniers and started to upgrade them with solid reinforcement in the sides and bottom, slaps against raining in and safety reflection. He also used more bright colours like red, royal blue and yellow. Now he had the bicycle dealers taken an interest in selling the panniers. Especially in Amsterdam they became a popular item.
When Diana Koppenol joined the company she started to mix the colours and added extra features as well, like hand made flowers, applications and the anti theft ring.
Together with her husband Frank Koppenol they promoted them trough the internet by letting people choose their own colour combinations. They also introduced commercial features like silk screen printing, stickers and since 2008 the possibility of digital printing.
Because the manufacturing of the panniers became so intensive the company started to work with the local social working place for disabled people and penitentiary devices. These facilities need to have labour for their inhabitants and perform very good quality work and we need to have a quality product that we can be proud of.
A Clarijs pannier is a original Dutch product of high quality standards and if you decide to purchase one, you better choose your colours right because they can last a very long time!
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