A company selling “fashionable” bullet-proof clothing has opened its first store in the Netherlands.
Residents of Eindhoven can now stock up on the classic bullet-proof vest, but also suits, leather jackets and even ties, the Omroep Brabant website reports. The shop sells a Colombian brand of armoured clothing that is designed to look just like normal outfits, with vests thin enough to wear underneath a T-shirt. The clothes are mainly aimed at people who might feel at risk in their jobs, such as jewellers and staff at petrol stations, says company spokesman Staas de Wijs. They’re not meant to appeal to criminals, he adds.
The group that owns the shop, Panamera, says there’s been an increased interest in the products since the Paris terror attacks in January. “After Paris, 150 more people have already asked for information,” CEO Yavuz Yilmaz tells the Eindhovens Dagblad website. He won’t give away anything specific about who’s buying the items, but says the past weeks have seen “a lot of enquiries from Belgium and France as a result of current developments”. Anyone interested in making their wardrobe bullet-proof might need to save up, however. According to Omroep Brabant, the cheapest item costs 2,400 euros ($2,700; £1,800).