Editorial: ECCO STREET ACE RAL7000

DESIGN

Oct 23

Modern Family Matters

Following a recent refresh of their brand identity, Danish footwear maestros ECCO sat down to discuss a new frontier, championed by a collaboration with Italian creative studio RAL7000. This first launch, a sleek capsule collection, tells the story of ECCO’s capabilities and a growing relationship that feels like a family affair.

It was sixty years ago that Birte and Karl Toosbuy founded ECCO in Bredebro, Denmark. In the years since, ECCO has become renowned for its pioneering practices in leather experimentation and direct injection innovation. Today, the lifestyle company remains in the family, with the second generation of Toosbuys, who oversee factories in six locations worldwide, alongside four innovative tanneries and over 2,000 ECCO retail spaces.

In 2021, ECCO’s new CEO, Panos Mytaros, decided it was due time to recharge the ECCO brand. His goal was not to move away from their past but rather to amplify their processes, designs and identity, for “a stronger ECCO”. You might’ve recently spotted ECCO’s work with Samuel Ross for A COLD WALL* SS22 or heard of At.Kollektive, their experimental lifestyle project started in 2022, that invites designers to create cross-discipline collections using ECCO’s resources. Whilst 2023’s At.Kollektive has enlisted the likes of Peter Do and Kiko Kostadinov, its first iteration gave birth to an ongoing collaborative partnership with the former creative director of Chloé, Natacha Ramsay-Levi. Natacha’s first project, which launched earlier this month, delivered a contemporary vision of ECCO and its values with a Modern Family campaign that enlisted the likes of PinkPantheress. A homage to the brand’s beginnings, ECCO is focused upon “family spirit” and what that stands for: connection. For Panos, connection stems beyond your blood family into your friends; your chosen family, and this permeates throughout the team at ECCO.

Adding new ingredients, new people and ideas into the family recipe is not a new concept for the brand, it’s something that they’ve been practicing for a very long time. For the past 15 years, ECCO has orchestrated a four-day workshop at their leather headquarters in the Netherlands, otherwise known as the Hotshop. Inviting cross-industry creatives, from established minds in luxury fashion to fresh graduates, the Hotshop is an immersive opportunity and equal playing field that encourages unlimited experimentation, innovation and collaboration with leather. “We [have] created and nurtured an amazing community of creatives consisting of 2000+ people” and that community “will keep on growing” explains Panos. The Hotshop is a prime example of ECCO’s open-minded and progressive practices, and it is here that ECCO and RAL7000 Studio first came together

“What’s apparent is that the thing people feel when they come into ECCO is this family spirit. Obviously firstly because it is a family company. Then our factories, and our manufacturers, they are our extended family. ”

PANOS MYTAROS (ECCO CEO)

Founded by Marco Simonetti, Michael Cutini and Mattais Gollin, RAL7000 Studio are a collective of designers and creatives based in Italy. With hubs in Milan and Civitanova, the team are geographically situated at the heart of footwear manufacturing, and their work is undeniably enriched by their vast surroundings of suppliers. The opportunity for a longer term collaboration “was an organic evolution of the relationship with Panos”, says Marco. “He is really a visionary guide, we just started sharing ideas and naturally got to this point”. It’s in the nature of RAL7000’s team, who come with completely different backgrounds, ages, experience, as they start any project by getting around the table and sharing ideas all together. Whilst the inspiration or design language may vary across RAL7000’s portfolio, something they’re drawn to is “creating contrast”, says Michael, as he describes their first capsule with ECCO as “aggressive cosiness”. This first product borrows the clean midsole from the ECCO STREET ACE, and uses it as a bridge between the urban and natural landscape. The new STREET ACE RAL7000 is a collision of cultural worlds and mindsets: Copenhagen and Civitanova, the cityscape and nature, heritage and innovation, with the design staying true to Michael’s description. The hybrid style boasts an exaggerated lugged outsole, a chunky midsole and a padded skate-inspired upper rendered in velvety nubuck leather with a super soft Nappa tongue. It’s a shoe that combines luxury standards and high performance with an outdoor-inspired mesh, the ergonomic midsole and signature ECCO FLUIDFORM™ technology that mimics the shape of the foot.

“The future of tanneries, where, opposed to mass production and trade shows, you talk with the tannery about what you're looking for and they will develop precisely what you’re imagining. ”

Marco Simonetti (RAL7000 CO-FOUNDER)

Still, the capsule is characterised by a clean, minimal design, one that doesn’t employ too many lines and “lets the material speak” explains Marco. The short timeframe of this capsule - achieved from concept to drop in just over four months - acted as a catalyst in the design execution of the project and provided the perfect test of ECCO’s facilities. By adopting the existing midsole from the ECCO STREET franchise, the designers successfully “saved time and found a starting point” while explicitly highlighting the “possibility to create something completely different even with the same tooling or an existing design”. There’s obviously a temptation to go all out or to “show off” when it comes to collaboration, but that’s the beauty of a committed ongoing collaboration, it’s not one drop and onto the next partnership, there’s time and space to let ideas evolve and no need to funnel every possibility into one shoe. By “stripping everything down to its core”, RAL7000 have created a blank canvas on which to build from and that’s exactly what they plan to do. “Storytelling is really important to us” explains Marco, so this first design tells the story of a modern consumer, someone that moves between worlds, but also sets out to “use the brand’s core leathers to tell the story of ECCO and what they do”.

Working with ECCO’s leather tanneries, RAL7000 witnessed their rare ability "to take any idea and prepare to develop it”. It’s what Marco believes to be the future of tanneries, where, opposed to mass production and trade shows, you talk with the tannery about what you're looking for and they will develop what you’re imagining”. For their second or third drop, RAL7000 are eager to maximise this potential, developing something exclusive in material, whilst pushing the limits of ECCO’s direct injection construction. Since the 1980s, Karl Toosbuy pioneered the use of direct injection technology in developing high quality shoes and today ECCO are known as the best in the business. Mastering this cost effective and complex technique is ECCO’s family recipe, one which RAL7000 can’t wait to test and reimagine. It seems what connects the two teams is an ability to see the beauty in production; in Research & Development and these values - values integral to industrial design - are at the core of ECCO and the STREET ACE RAL7000.

ECCO’s refreshed outlook and mixing of minds is an opportunity to translate the brand’s spirit in a way that resonates with new communities. It is by choosing collaborators with genuine connections that leads to the most authentic storytelling and this in turn increases the brand’s credibility outside of their current circles. ECCO will undoubtedly continue their mainline shoes, but their dedication to collaboration, and goal to “create without compromise” will boldly lead them into new territories whilst passing on their expertise to the next generation. Working with RAL7000Studio, ECCO has provided a vision of where the brand hopes to be seen in the future: as design that you connect with, as fashion staples or your favourite pair of shoes. Knowing the incredibly tight turnaround of this capsule, and its purpose as a starting point for their collaboration, it’s safe to say we’re excited to see what RAL7000, ECCO and their family spirit get up to with more time together.