ECCO Leather: Making Dreams Reality

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Based in London, Bonnie Carr is a Designer preparing for post-grad studies in [technical] Menswear. Working across Spatial Design, Curation, Tech and Fashion, Bonnie draws from a wide spectrum of subcultures to bring deep reference to her Design ideas. We are stoked she’s contributing to Sabukaru as an output for her research, while she throws her knowledge into creating her first ‘Adaptable Garment System’. The column’s called Not For Archiving™

Follow @bonniecarr - her IG is great. Ok here’s is her next piece:

ECCO Leather are at the forefront of fabric innovation for Outerwear. With the worlds most planet-friendly tannery and producing some of the most mesmerising materials in history, Bonnie chats to Head of ECCO Design Studio about innovation, collabs and research.

ECCO Leather: Making Dreams Reality

Ok we’ve established I have a thing for fabric tech already : ) so here’s an introduction to the amazing things ECCO Leather are doing.

I chatted with Christine Mukakasa, Head of ECCO Leather Design Studio to understand more about how and why they manage to constantly innovate ahead of all others:

Thanks for this Christine.

As you know, I’m fascinated by ECCOs advancements over the last few years.

Can we chat through how ECCO Leather experimentation was born beyond the ECCO brand that we know from the Fashion Industry?

Both ECCO shoes and ECCO Leather have always been driven by experimentation. Owning your own tanneries means you have all the freedom to explore possibility. For ECCO innovation is at the core if each new product development and leather is a huge part of it.

Our CEO Panos Mytaros comes from a leather background himself and with that he holds all the knowledge to push a company forward on both a leather as well as an innovation level. Hiring a team of designers to work together with highly specialised technicians and ultimately shaping up a creative studio within the tannery is a pretty unique step and situation to work from as a tannery.

The thought behind every step we take is; can we do more? This goes for all our initiatives – from design to taking responsibility for the materials we use. From that thought a network of creatives and brands grew, approaching ECCO Leather as the go to brand for new and undiscovered leathers. In this line of thought, the matter of education also plays a large role. Hence the events we started organising, first small – nowadays on a scale of 200 people – all focused on education and sharing our knowledge re. what it means to create leather. The possibilities are endless, from retail activations, allowing consumers to experience leather on a micro-level through workshops, to a yearly 3-day festival called HOT-SHOP, dedicated to a selected group of creatives, invited to learn and co-develop leather. The results are incredible. This international group of people really became a growing network and community.

You use luxurious and extremely rare dye techniques with hyper-technical finishes. Explain a little about the ECCO process, that sets it apart from usual tanning and leather processing..

The base is embedded in the range of techniques we hold – we have a long line of specialists that form our core development team and from this heritage we grow. The process is experimentation towards a certain look or feel we have in mind.

This can vary from the discovery of Apparition – the first soft and pliable transparent leather to our Indigo leather range. It is a matter of constant development and pushing of boundaries/ making unexpected combinations. The development of our True Indigo range took 3 years and is still further developed to extend the collection.

Also looking at other industries, developing special techniques – inspired by for example the denim industry – and applying this to leather. We seek inspiration in all areas, from art to automotive. Mainly on a material level, new textures and technical properties motivate us to further explore, how does this look in leather?
Overall the most important is that whatever development, it needs to look and feel like leather.

I’m particularly interested in ECCO’s FSDX line of fused leathers. Dyneema-bonded leather is crazy exciting for those of us passionate about fabric strength verses bulk and weight.

Designing with paper-thin, flexible leather in varying opacities is so cool and allows for much-needed innovation in Fashion, Sustainability and beyond.

Where did the idea come from for the wool, canvas and Dyneema® fusions?

When talking fused leather, the main driver was to find new textures [touch] and in different substances that simply don’t exist in leather. Natural leather of course has many features. The different zonal areas, providing different natural structures and substance. Giving leather a totally different look, embossing is an alternative, where you basically equalise the leather’s structure by implementing an “all over textural print” so to say.

But we were searching for more. Finding inspiration in the iconic texture of Dyneema, we realised this allowed us to further explore a dual-texture and touch feature in leather. In addition, leather of course has its limits once stripped down to the thinnest layer when it comes to remaining strength. But the possibilities for application of such thin leathers pushed us to think ahead and play with the opportunity of creating lightweight leathers with more technical features than just being strong.

Both wool – in all its varieties; irregular, fine knits, chunky cables – and Canvas – of course the first two things that stand out are its recognisable structures from knitting/ weaving. Next to aesthetics we also realised Canvas for example brought other aspects of strength – being a classic weave, known for its sturdiness. In wool – the natural aspects of heath regulation and moisture wicking, gave a total experience of enhanced comfort and breathability.

You’ve worked closely with @thedyneemaproject to create your bonded leather, would you consider teaming up with other material specialists, @ByBorre for 3D leather-knits for example?

With Open Circle Lab, we’re always seeking opportunities to collaborate. Overall – it needs to bring newness/ innovation. And it needs to be about leather, but other than that, Yes we would definitely consider. And these collaborations don’t necessarily have to be with material specialists only. Our FSDX Dyneema range is for example used together with a new experimental garment dye technique by Stone Island. Creating an all-over dyed look with leather for the S0695 Stone Island Exostrike Boot.

Let’s not forget the STONE ISLAND ICE JACKET reissue in ECCOs thermosensitive leather.

00199 STONE ISLAND ICE JACKET in Dyneema® Bonded leather

“The first jacket in thermosensitive leather, born from the collaboration of ECCO LEATHER® and The Dyneema® Project with Stone Island. The leather is bonded to the super lightweight Dyneema® composite non-woven fabric. Its outer face is coated with thermosensitive agents. Pigment molecules micro encapsulated in resin change appearance and the leather facing drastically changes colour with the lowering of the temperature: from garnet to black, from beige to steel grey. Fold away Dyneema® hood in the stand-up collar.”

We are always open for boundary breaking collaborations. Therefore we have established the Open Circle Lab. A small lab – as part of our creative studio – dedicated to collaborations. Here we are able to experiment together with brands and clients on a smaller scale. The FSDX range was born during HOT-SHOP, further developed over the past 3 years.

You’ve also invented glow-in-the-dark leather finishes (Glowworm range), some of the purest and most vibrant colour palettes I have ever seen in materials with any notable strength (Pure™range), ECCO even has an Indigo blue range in homage to Denim and its consistent usage since its workwear invention (True Indigo™)... 

We simply never say no to the question -is this possible?. You will only discover if you try and our team of designers, together with our amazing technicians spend a huge amount of time making the latest technical and aesthetic discoveries. Heres a little more about our main innovations.. 

Glowworm

An invention playing with natural structures and luminescence. The inspiration was merely a celebration of natural textures in a surprise element. Creating this leather we experimented with wax and glow in the dark pigments. In daylight this leather appears classic. As shown in the video – the reaction of the wax to movement during the creation process delivers an organic pattern – only visible on leather when in the dark.

PURE™

For this innovation the ultimate question was, can we create the purest colours ever in leather? The true inspiration came from a prism – capturing a pure string of light and extending it in all available [rainbow] colours. Bright colours are characteristically interactive and have only been achievable with leather through the use of pigments. Because all major tanning methods used to date generate a powerful base colour that overwhelms standard bright dyestuffs, the innovation of pure white, enables the development of a series of leathers in the brightest colours. Each colour creating its own vitality.

The beauty of PURE COLOUR originates in a special tanning technique which does not fight the brilliant colours we wish to apply, but supports and complements them. This base white leather became the foundation of the PURE COLOUR leather range. Pushing innovation, it was also highly important to us to highlight diversity in tanning technique. Each technique enabling a different outcome. The high quality results for every technique is uncompromisable, but each technique holds a different benefit. The technique applied to create our PURE collection is naturally metal free by using a substitute tanning ingredient.

TRUE INDIGO™

The development of this story actually has a very technical background. Indigo is a natural dye that is very challenging to work with. The acceptance of Indigo to cotton/ denim is already a process of its own and of course, it’s natural behaviour – bleeding on light surfaces and gradually fading is very well known.

Enabling Indigo to connect with leather was a 3-year study. Naturally the two components hate each other – which means the development of a process and technique was necessary for the leather to adopt this treatment. In addition we had to make sure the Indigo leather would not bleed. Indigo is not a traditional blue dyestuff. It is an oxidation process that creates the deep blue hues. In addition the oxidation process on leather has as a result that the colouring process highlights the natural features of the leather, meaning it adheres differently to the leather’s zonal textures and marks, creating a very dynamic look.

This leather range, like most of our techniques, is in constant further development.

“The latest Indigo Leather has been used for the Nike Air Jordan 12 Retro”

But let’s talk about ‘Apparition’ - surely the game-changer from ECCO - a transparent, impossibly thin cow leather that remains soft and fully flexible. This must be a world-first compared to past experiments which resulted in stiff leather sheets with no elasticity? Can we chat about how this was created and the uses Designers have come up with so far?

Sruli Recht using ECCO Apparition Leather

You’re right, this is a game changer indeed and something we call an artisan leather. It is as versatile and unique as a transparent leather can be expected to be and comes – naturally – with a care package. We treat this invention like Haute Couture. Its special features needs some extra caretaking and is therefore not suitable for commercial use. However, when translated in the beautifully designed overcoats by Helmut Lang or the layered sneaker by Maison Mihara it gives a unique and unexpected leather perspective, showing the unimaginable can be done.

Generally speaking, when we’re talking leather, we want to emphasise there is no limitation to what you can achieve with leather. Its versatility is still very unknown – whilst experience shows leather is one of the most long living, natural materials that possibly exists. Apparition is one of our highest achievements – transparent leather that is soft and pliable – which underlines this idea of unlimited possibility.

Ultimately, we will never reveal our recipe, haha…

A big congratulations on winning the 2019 Popular Science Award for ECCO’s DriTan™ Technology. With wasteful water usage being the key environmental issue with leather tanning, you have developed a ground-breaking method over the last 5 years which utilises moisture already found in the natural collagen in leather, without the need for additional water. In theory this saves 25 million litres of water a year, which is quite an astounding figure. What is next in the development of DriTan™ possibilities?

DriTan™ affects one step of the process, where of course our dream is to tan leather without the need for water in general. We are continuously focused on finding efficient solutions in how to improve our processes one step at the time.

Meanwhile we improve every outcome by cleaning our own waste water, re-using waste for bio-industry purposes. Our tanneries are completely self-sufficient.

I see the collaboration with the mighty Porter Yoshida & Co. used ECCOs DriTan™ process with Dyneema-bonded leather for their 85th anniversary release. The two brands seem very at home with each other.

So can you tell me a bit more about your next challenges with ECCO Leather? What issues you are looking to contribute answers to environmentally? 

We are highly aware we are contributing to a polluting industry. However – we improve our processes daily, working with a dedicated team of specialists in house. We believe it is in the small steps that make the difference.
With this, education is also very important. There is very little knowledge about the leather industry and we believe in contributing to sharing all there is to know about making leather, our philosophy and how we believe we can make a difference. A good example is one of our collaborations with Matthew Williams and his brand 1017 Alyx 9SM and his desire to only work with other brands that are able to work from a matter of transparency when it comes to the production of product/ materials. Through workshops and panel talks we share our vision and demonstrate what making leather entails. This direct approach helps people understand and make more conscious decisions.

We believe the image of leather is often perceived negatively due to many faulty or misguided facts. Leather however, is one of the most sustainable, natural materials that exists – being extremely durable, versatile and strong. Making use of various techniques and upscaling innovation on the manufacturing side only adds to this. For example our NEO NATURE collection is bio-compostable.

The planets biggest Designers have been turning to you for their new seasons, including Virgil Abloh, Helmut Lang and Rick Owens. How does it feel to be represented up and down the virtual catwalks of Paris etc? Are Virgil and co very hands on with the cuts of leather they choose and the uniqueness of the finish? What would be the process for how they sample and choose the ECCO products they like? 

Of course we are honoured to be able to work together with the established brands. It is a constant exchange of challenges that also helps pushing our boundaries.

The first collaboration was with Sruli Recht, followed by some of our very dear clients; Helmut Lang, Rick Owens, Off-White™.

The process or operational side to this is handled by our Open Circle Lab initiative, as mentioned before. This is to enable small scale developments and experimentation. However sometimes these initiatives turn to large-scale productions, which enables us to turn to our specialised development department that supports higher scale runs. It is amazing to be able to supply any request in house.

You run an annual open-source workshop named 'Hot-Shop’ which is now in its 13th year. This opens up the leather-making process to multi-disciplinary designers. What does this achieve each year and can you name a few stand-out products that were created during the last few events? Was the remote version this year during COVID restrictions as productive? I hope so!

As we chatted about, it has supported the establishment of an international creative community, almost functioning as a networking event. New leather developments like FSDX have commenced here, as well as new connections to brands like Apple and Adidas.

The remote version really has underlined the agility of our company, being able to change approach under restricted circumstances. We were extremely happy to experience the level of commitment and creativity that was exchanged during our live sessions. Of course we cannot reveal any of the newest developments yet, but this year offered the unique opportunity to create your own custom bag or shoe as well – developed in our own manufacturing facility in Portugal. You will see some of the amazing results passing by on our IG.

Thanks so much Christine, lovely to chat about ECCO Leather in this way. Excited to see the upcoming innovations and collabs from you and the amazing R&D team at ECCO.