Derimod Brand Guidelines: A 1974 Istanbul Leather Label, Listed as DERIM, With 92 Stores

A 1974 family business built around leather.

Derimod was founded in 1974 by Ümit Zaim and Zerrin Zaim, the business weekly Ekonomist reported in March 2024, as a family business set up to combine leather with fashion and sell it abroad. English Wikipedia gives the same founding year and describes Derimod as a Turkish leather-goods producer and retailer with its headquarters in Istanbul.

Its early home was Istanbul’s leather trade. In April 2004 the trade journal Leather International called the marketing company, Derimod Deri Konfeksiyon Pazarlama, “one of Türkiye’s oldest garment producers” and reported that it had moved to a new showroom just opposite its old one in Zeytinburnu, which the journal described as the leather wholesale district of Istanbul.

The brand later moved from wholesale showrooms into its own shops. English Wikipedia notes that Derimod stores sit in some of the country’s big shopping centres, naming İstinye Park in Istanbul, and that the shops sell other makers’ goods alongside Derimod’s own lines. In March 2024, as the company entered its 50th year, Ekonomist reported that management had passed to the second generation, with Murat Zaim as chairman of a newly separated executive board, while the board of directors and the executive board were split into two bodies.

Jackets first, then shoes and bags.

Derimod’s range today rests on three categories: leather clothing, footwear and bags. The company’s own site groups its women’s and men’s collections into shoes, leather clothing, bags and accessories, with leather jackets, suede pieces, coats and trench coats on the clothing side, and boots, loafers, trainers and sandals on the footwear side. Its “About us” page says the company has more than fifty years of experience, and names leather jackets, shoes and bags as the core of the brand.

How those goods are made is set out in the listed company’s filings rather than in its marketing. The interim report for the six months to 30 June 2026, published on KAP, Turkey’s official public disclosure platform, says Derimod Konfeksiyon works in two main categories with two supply models. Leather garments, mostly leather jackets, are bought in ready-made or produced under contract by outside workshops, a model known in Turkey as fason production. Shoes and bags, with accessories, are sourced from suppliers in Turkey and abroad. The audited accounts for 2023 describe the same model: contract garment production through third parties, garment purchases in the domestic market, and shoe and bag purchases at home and abroad.

The shops also carry other brands. In March 2024 Ekonomist reported that Derimod had begun a partnership with the Italian shoe brand Geox in 2023, opening the first Geox store in Turkey under the Derimod group at İstinye Park in İzmir and stocking Geox shoes in 25 Derimod stores, and that it had added brands including Skechers, Camper and Birkenstock. The company’s site in 2026 lists Geox, Skechers, Birkenstock and Harley-Davidson footwear among the brands it sells, and it runs a customer programme called Derimod Club across its shops and online store. The same 2024 report said that newer Derimod stores had been made larger, growing from around 150–200 square metres to 350–400 square metres, and that Derimod had been selling abroad through the online fashion retailer Zalando since 2022.

Design and documentation.

Turkish fashion and menswear brands tend to present themselves through the things they make and the places they sell them. Tailored suits, shirts, knitwear, leather goods and womenswear lead the product pages, and many labels describe made-to-measure or ceremonial ranges, such as tuxedos for weddings, alongside everyday clothes. Product names and fabrics are usually given plainly, with the collection season as the main organising idea.

Retail format carries much of the identity. Some names began as department stores and now run several store formats under one roof, from full-line stores and single-brand boutiques to outlets and online shops. Others began as menswear makers and grew into chains of their own stores in shopping malls and on high streets. Flagship stores in Istanbul districts such as Nişantaşı and along the Bosphorus are often named in company histories, and the international shops, franchise partners and showrooms that companies publish give a sense of how far a label has travelled.

Group ownership is part of the picture and needs dated sources. Several labels sit inside holding companies: Boyner Group, built on the Altınyıldız textile business, runs department stores and menswear labels, while Orka Holding owns a family of menswear names. Ownership has changed over time through partnerships with foreign investors and later splits or buybacks, so the date of any ownership statement matters as much as the statement itself.

Corporate pages are the usual starting point for founders, owners and store counts. Company “about” and history pages give founding years, founders’ names and milestones in the company’s own words; national newspapers, news agencies and business press add dated reports on openings, partnerships and changes of control. For a designer, that mix explains why these identities often rest on a group name, a flagship address and a type of garment rather than on a single logo.

Two companies, one brand.

Derimod works through two companies. The one listed on Borsa Istanbul is Derimod Konfeksiyon Ayakkabı Deri Sanayi ve Ticaret, whose shares trade under the ticker DERIM on the exchange’s main market, according to its June 2026 report on KAP. Its registered seat is in an organised industrial zone in Ergene, in Tekirdağ province, and its head office is in Kağıthane, Istanbul. It manages the supply chain for the brand and sells almost everything it sources wholesale to its parent: the audited accounts for 2023 say 99 percent of its sales went to that one customer.

The parent is Derimod Deri Konfeksiyon Pazarlama, the retail and marketing company that runs the shops and is wholly owned and controlled by the Zaim family, the June 2026 report says. It held 73 percent of the listed company at that date, with the remaining 27 percent traded publicly. The 2023 accounts show how that stake was built: at the end of 2022 the marketing company held about 37 percent, with family members holding shares directly, and by the end of 2023 those holdings had been brought together in the marketing company.

The shop network has grown slowly. The audited accounts give 88 leased stores in Turkey at the end of 2022 and 89 at the end of 2023; the June 2026 report gives 92 stores in Turkey as of 30 June 2026, alongside two other sales channels, online sales and overseas dealers. In March 2024 Ekonomist reported that Derimod also had stores in eight other countries. The listed supply company itself is small, with 65 staff at the end of June 2026, according to the same report.

For a design guide, Derimod shows how a leather brand can carry one material through jackets, shoes and bags and keep a single name across a family retail company and a listed supplier. Compare Mavi, the Istanbul denim brand that is also listed on Borsa Istanbul, and Vakko, the Istanbul fashion house that began as a hat shop. For this guide we use saddle brown, espresso and bone with a sturdy sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Derimod’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.