Les Deux founder Andreas Christian von der Heide: “The day profit comes first, we die”

In the busy center of the headquarters of Danish fashion label Les Deux – which co-founder Andreas Christian von der Heide calls his ‘playground’ – two worlds quietly collide. On his desk lies a green Moleskine filled with fragments of ideas. But beneath the creative instincts of a man who built a brand from a single white T-shirt that now employs 150 people in multiple markets, lies the unmistakable shadow of a soldier.

However, to describe von der Heide as just a successful entrepreneur would not do the matter justice. The story of Les Deux is not just that of a scaling brand. Rather, it is a constant and conscious attempt to build an empire without losing one’s humanity.

Discipline as invisible architecture

Before fashion came the army. While his fellow students enjoyed the safety of the university halls, he woke up in the cold precision of the military barracks.

“I was a wild child,” Von der Heide admits. His voice carries the calm authority of someone who has survived the chaos of early success. “The army put me on the right path.” Not only did he endure the structure, he fell in love with it. “I love that there was a structured day… you’re not done until you’re done. I like that kind of mantra.”

There he learned his first lesson in leadership: legitimacy has no age. “What I love about the Army is that age doesn’t matter. If you’re good enough, they’ll invest in you.” He transferred this dogma directly to Les Deux. When he founded the brand at just 20 years old, he was not a business student. He was a young man trained in the rigors of the field and believed that discipline was the only way to protect creativity.

The missing thread and the creative escape

Every entrepreneur has a ‘common thread’ – a silent story from childhood that determines hunger in adulthood. For the founder, this thread is defined by an absence: his father, who died when he was two years old.

“That father figure was always missing,” he says. “It created a kind of hunger – to prove that you can do anything you put your mind to.” He found balance through two other people: a grandfather who embodied the grit of entrepreneurship and an aunt who opened the door to a deeply creative world. Von der Heide found his way between them. For him, creativity is not just a commercial tool. It is a “place I can go to just be free.”

A pure act of will

Les Deux was founded in 2011 without a network and without capital and was purely an act of will. In the early years, Von der Heide and his first co-founder Virgil Mwepele were like-minded people. They shared the same creative strengths, but they often stepped on each other’s toes. As the business took shape, Virgil eventually left the company to take a permanent position. At that time, the company did not yet have the financial basis to pay salaries, even to its founders. However, the relationship remained good.

The real turning point for the company was not a sudden injection of capital, but the arrival of Kristoffer Haapanen. He joined as co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) just months after the brand was founded.

While the partnership with Virgil was based on a shared vision, the transition to Haapanen resulted in a necessary, almost organic division of labor. “Everything that you can see and touch – that is me. Everything that is invisible – sales, warehouse, tax regulations – that is him,” notes Von der Heide. It’s not a rigid ‘golden rule’ set out in a contract, but an implicit, blind trust that allows them to move faster. “We’re good at two different things… and we don’t interfere in each other’s playgrounds.” This synergy allowed Les Deux to navigate the murky waters of rapid growth without ever breaking.

“We’re always looking for that extra five percent that makes a difference, and we’re proud to have a team that does the same.”

Recruitment Intent: ‘I Can Feel Them’

In an industry notorious for its systematic turnover, Les Deux stands out. Five of the first six employees are still with the company after more than a decade. Von der Heide built this circle on an intuition: he understands people.

“People feel alive when they feel energy,” he says. When he looks for talent, he doesn’t just look at the CV, but at the ‘intent’. Its creative director, Mathias Jensen, started out as a 23-year-old graphic designer. Von der Heide was not interested in his background, but in his soul. “I see if I can ‘feel’ them. Are they here because it’s just a nice brand, or are they here because they want to create their own journey?”

From ‘tough love’ to meditation rooms

Like many young founders, Von der Heide does not hide the price he paid. In the beginning, he worked 80-hour weeks and expected everyone else to do the same. “I sacrificed everything… I was so driven that I also expected people to give her absolutely everything.” He calls it ‘tough love’. Whether those early years were asking too much is difficult to say. What is certain is that the company still bears traces of this intensity – even if, as he says, time and fatherhood have ‘roughened the edges’.

Today, the ‘playground’ has evolved to include a meditation room at the brand’s headquarters. There, a Buddhist monk visits the team to teach them mindfulness. “An hour ago I had a lot of people in the meditation room with a monk… yesterday we had training in the gym.” These are not company advantages, but rather essential components of a ‘healthy culture’. Von der Heide has recognized that a brand dies the moment it becomes just a number in an Excel spreadsheet. “The day we do this, she dies.”

“We have a rule here: Nobody is above the team,” he says. This is not just a slogan. He separated from top performers because of a lack of friendliness. He believes that “it only takes one person to ruin the morale of an entire team.” His leadership style is very personal. He recently heard that a new employee was having trouble getting pregnant. Von der Heide, who has followed a similar path, contacted the person directly. “I just reached out and said, ‘Hey, I know this is a very sensitive time… if you want to talk to someone who’s been through this, you can just reach out.’ I want the people who enrich my life to feel that I really care about them.”

Resisting the tyranny of data

As Les Deux grew, so did the role of data. The founder remains a skeptic. “For me, data secures the basis, but if we only look at data, we will be a boring company in five years. Data looks back, it cannot look forward.”

In an industry currently plagued by overproduction and a ‘crisis of truth’, Von der Heide relies on his instincts to stay relevant. He wants Les Deux to be a ‘speedboat and not a supertanker’. It should be agile enough to navigate difficult waters and design collections with shorter lead times ‘straight-to-season’. While he hopes for a change in the law to level the playing field for sustainability, his focus remains on ‘preserving the magic’.

What remains

How does a man who balances the determination of a sergeant with the notebook of a poet want to be remembered? When he thinks about his legacy, he doesn’t mention sales milestones. He thinks about his children and the partners who will one day talk to them.

His answer is disarmingly simple: “Dedicated. Caring. And a little demanding.”

Ultimately, Les Deux seeks to prove a radical thesis: that you can build a global empire without breaking the spirit of those who lay the foundations. Whether such an equilibrium can survive scaling is another question. For now, Von der Heide is still trying to prove that it is possible.