It’s about time we close the gap between design and production

In fashion, creativity is traditionally considered the blessing of a lucky few. Supposedly, creativity is extremely rare, something only a few charismatic personalities have access to. Everyone else is reduced to the mere execution of these people’s ideas.

Inside the ECCO Leather studios, that preconceived idea is radically challenged. “People just need to be placed in an environment where their creativity will be stimulated and channelled,” continues Mytaros. Here, creativity is the result of experimentation, teamwork, and even friction.

This vision became the basis of our partnered collaborative project. As part of a new annual design programme, 1 Granary and ECCO Leather joined forces to open the doors of the ECCO workshops in the Netherlands to 1 Granary’s global community of designers and creatives.

At the start of summer, designers Johanna Parv and Charlie Constantinou, were invited by 1 Granary to work closely with ECCO’s in-house research and design teams, gaining full access to their unparalleled creative expertise and cutting-edge facilities. Designers Duran Lantink and KNWLS will also be visiting ECCO later this year.

In fashion education, designers are taught to prioritise their imaginative prowess and conceptual thinking above anything else. Design becomes an abstract exercise, where materiality and technique are reduced to a second-rate status. As a result, designers often struggle to bring their ideas into reality and lack the skills needed to communicate effectively with technicians once they leave the protective environment of university.

But the implications of this approach go much further than a flawed design process. Since our industry is organised around this siloed separation between creativity and execution, all forms of innovation are impacted. Design can be pushed beyond our imagination when new technologies and innovative materials are involved from the start, and sustainability becomes a much more organic thought process when the design studio knows exactly what the material impact of their ideas is.

The 1 Granary and ECCO partnership is one step in changing this structure.

By allowing independent designer to develop their ideas directly on the factory floor, new material propositions flourish naturally, guided by the high-tech potential of the facilities. “I believe everyone can make leather,” Panos explained. “It’s about understanding the techniques and using them. Consider your leather materials your ingredients and using the machines as the equipment.”

“Because I don’t have any expertise with leather, understanding the process of how leather is produced was really fascinating.” – Charlie Constantinou

The ECCO Leather studios are specifically constructed for this purpose, optimising creative potential. The well-lit, open-floored space is organised so that designers and technicians can easily access each machine – whether it’s embossing, spray-painting, or buffing – and follow their inspiring intuition, moving from one idea to the next without being hindered.

“Because I don’t have any expertise with leather, understanding the process of how leather is produced was really fascinating, how you can manipulate the material in so many ways,” said Charlie Constantinou. The menswear designer is known for his manual textile dyes and manipulations, yet this was his first ever experience working with leather. With a high-tech focus, the London-based designer hadn’t ever considered that the material could fit into his survival-gear-inspired universe. But working closely with the ECCO team, Constantinou discovered a new way into his own creative world.

Something similar happened to Johanna Parv, who might’ve been drawn to leather for her accessories in the past but hadn’t ever considered using the material in her sleek and feminine bike-gear-inspired collections. The natural perfectionist habitually works through the design process by herself from her London-based studio, but inside the buzzing, dynamic ECCO facilities, she had to quickly improvise and adapt her working methods.

“It’s not just me making the creations for my pleasure and hoping rich people will like it. It’s a responsibility. You need to think, who are the people who would be willing to come on board and work with me?” – Johanna Parv

Since graduating from Central Saint Martins, the womenswear designer has steadily learned to collaborate closely with manufacturing, seeing her creative design work evolve alongside these partnerships. “It’s not just me making the creations for my pleasure and hoping rich people will like it. It’s a responsibility. You need to think, who are the people who would be willing to come on board and work with me?” Johanna says.

“Open mindedness and being ready to be surprised are a must,” explains Panos. Leather has a mind of its own, and its creative process cannot be controlled. Working with ECCO, designers expand their methodology and design reflexes. Panos admits to many failures when he first started working with the material. “I always said …hmmmm, what’s in it? And there is always 25% good in it. You just need to be open and see it.”

“The design process is the product.”

In this sense, our collaboration builds on ECCO Leather’s unique working practice, in which their tannery and leather-making facilities operate as a space for creative experimentation. Priority is given to creative freedom and the development of new innovations in leather production. With an emphasis on speculative projects free from commercial restraints, the new collaboration fosters interdisciplinary knowledge exchange and creative breakthroughs, with both designer and manufacturer pushing one another to new horizons and possibilities.

At the end of the day, the project falls back on one core philosophy: the design process is the product. In fashion, it’s not possible to separate imagination from material, concept from construction, idea from execution – those always go hand in hand. The closer we can bring them together, the stronger the result will become.