ECCO PRESENTS THE ECCO.KOLLEKTIVE FOR SS25

Footwear and accessories company Ecco is releasing the fifth season of Ecco.kollektive, its collaborative concept for leather innovation. For Spring/Summer 2025, a new group of guest designers—Craig Green (above), Louis Gabriel Nouchi, and Ottolinger—is invited to bring unique, boundary-pushing perspectives to the project. Formerly known as At.Kollektive, this season, the program was renamed Ecco.kollektive, but the mission at the heart of the project remains the same: to excite, surprise, and innovate via the power of collaboration.

Launched in 2022, Ecco.kollektive was conceived to challenge the traditional relationships between manufacturers, designers, and consumers. In a mutual exchange of ideas and expertise, each season, a revolving roster of contributing designers is invited to merge their vision and creativity with Ecco’s technical skill and knowledge. From a variety of disciplines and artistic perspectives, the talents share a synergy with and appreciation of Ecco’s values of innovation, creation, and precision.

For SS25’s collaborators, the creative process began at the leather studios in Ecco tanneries. Experiencing Ecco Leather’s world-leading innovation up close, they then began to interpret and push the possibilities of the material, giving permission to be creative and challenging without limitation. The result? A multi-faceted collection spanning shoes, accessories, and ready-to-wear.

Joining the Ecco.kollektive this season is Craig Green, the visionary and prodigiously talented London-based designer. Renowned for his refreshing, uncompromising ingenuity and integrity, Green’s work is rooted in a dialogue between emotion and pragmatism, the conceptual and the humble. Three times a winner of the British Menswear Designer at the Fashion Awards and a professor of fashion design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, his designs can be found in the permanent collections of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the V&A Museum. Green’s ability for utilizing unexpected and original materials makes him an organic collaborator for the Ecco.kollektive.

Joining Green is Louis-Gabriel Nouchi (above), the Parisian designer behind LGN. Design signatures from his six-year-old brand are incorporated and reinterpreted in a collection of fluid, elegant ready-to-wear that transcends conventional gender norms. ‘Our inspiration for this collection delves into the intricate textures of the human body, drawing parallels with the supple shininess and waxy allure of biker leather,’ he says. ‘The exceptional beauty and technical capabilities of Ecco leather have enabled us to explore new avenues of construction’.

Finally, for the Berlin-based, Swiss design duo Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient (above)
of Ottolinger, inspiration is found in Dadaism, the early 20th century avant-garde art movement. Channeling ‘the absurd and the surreal’ their footwear designs defy norms, celebrate individualism, and blur the boundaries between fashion and art. Star and stone embellishments bring a sense of childlike whimsy and levity to otherwise architectural designs.

“Innovation, collaboration, and material excellence are always at the heart of everything we do at Ecco. As Ecco.kollektive continues to grow and evolve, we are excited to welcome the incredibly talented Craig Green, Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, and Ottolinger into our family of collaborators to create a collection which blends our shared vision and expertise,” says Panos Mytaros, Ecco CEO (above).

Previous collaborators in the program have included designer and Helmut Lang creative director Peter Do, London-based designer Kiko Kostadinov, design duo Laura and Deanna Fanning, and feted shoe designer Nina Christen. Former Chloé creative director Natacha Ramsay-Levi, part of the inaugural At.Kollektive class joined Ecco as a creative partner in 2023. Available online at eccokollektive.com and at selected stores starting in November, retails start at €225.