Jelle Vanderveen has passed away, his family has announced. He was best known as director of Warenhuis Vanderveen in the heart of Assen, a position he held in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s together with his brother Ruurd, who died in 2017. Jelle died unexpectedly in his sleep last Sunday.
The current director of Warenhuis Vanderveen, Nico Vanderveen, describes his uncle Jelle as ‘the creative brain of the department store’. Nico’s father Ruurd, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 76, has been responsible for the business side of the directorship since the 1970s. “Together they managed to push the department store up in the momentum of the nations, you could say,” says Nico, the fifth generation of Vanderveen in the department store.
According to the current director of the department store, his uncle Jelle’s creativity came to the fore in many different ways. “He could draw beautifully and make shop windows. But he also used his creativity strategically for the company. Jelle was the man of the big ideas and the positioning of the grand magazine in Assen”, Nico describes the way Jelle managed to market Vanderveen Warenhuis.
In order to be able to continue to innovate the Asser department store, Jelle drew inspiration from all over the world. “He regularly traveled to Singapore, Paris and New York, for example, to see how the microcosm of the grand magazines stuck right there. Building a large department store with sixty shops under one roof is really Uncle Jelle’s story. Think of Warenhuis Vanderveen as a retail symphony orchestra; where the musicians perform a beautiful piece of music. That is Jelle’s merit.”
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