Factory in a Box

Today, 50 students at Design School Kolding display the results of a somewhat different course with ECCO. A course that has been heavily impacted by corona in terms of form and content and was therefore presented under the headline Factory in a Box. The course and the exhibition also mark 10 years of strategic collaboration between ECCO and Design School Kolding as the first formal partnership agreement was signed in 2011. And apparently the collaboration keeps evolving.

Like everything else the cross-disciplinary course with ECCO has been influenced by the obstacle that we have come to know only too well: corona. However, instead of limiting them, it has challenged teachers and students positively to work in different ways and the form of collaboration has been new and educational.

- The students have helped disrupt how we usually complete the course called Brand & Collection and have taken their projects and products to new levels in terms of how shoes and bags could be used and experienced in the future, says Line Rumhult, Workshop Manager and Teacher at Design School Kolding.

Corona has challenged the way we look at work, travel and relationships, but also trends. Are we moving in the right direction? How fast should we go? What is natural, and what isn’t?

- Demands of economic growth, advertisements, consumption, communication overload have for many years challenged the natural rhythms of the world. Now corona has forced us to stop and look at what we have created. Designers have a unique position and obligation to contribute, because they can inspire us to new functionalities, different aesthetics, social communities and sustainable production. And this was really the starting point for this year’s course with ECCO, which we have called Accelerating through Change, says Line Rumhult.

And today the students display prototypes of their innovative designs at Design School Kolding and present their concepts digitally and in catalogues to ECCO under the shared headline Factory in a Box. A title that refers to the obstacle, but at least as much so to the creativity and productiveness, which has characterized the course.

The masterpiece, the mix and the one for the market
The cross-disciplinary teams comprising BA students from Industrial Design, Accessory Design, Fashion Design and Textile Design have created either a shoe or a bag collection with a three-fold focus: The Masterpiece, the eye catcher of the collection produced both as a prototype and a 3D visualization. This is the most expressive design in the collection, both in terms of materials, texture, colour, shape and construction and it challenges the conventions of what you can do in one shoe or bag. Then there is the mix – a limited edition translation of the masterpiece created for ECCO’s experimental concept stores W21-Amsterdam and K9-Kopenhagen and the bold consumer. Finally there is the market design, the commercial product created for the ECCO stores and the mainstream consumer.

The concepts and collections are created based on a set of fixed parameters, including sustainability, focus on use and users, and technology and digital transformation – the students have worked in Clo3D, Rhino, Gravity, and more. Also the ECCO brand DNA is a parameter that the students had to incorporate in their process. A DNA that centres on nature and the human form (foot or body); respect for materials as representing the soul and core of the product; versatile function that promotes freedom (of movement); and finally Danish Modern, which is about creating a process that allows for synergy and reciprocity between design and production, enabling products that are accessible, affordable and relevant to more people.

10 years of common ground
The course and today’s exhibition mark 10 years of strategic collaboration between ECCO and Design School Kolding after signing the first formal partnership agreement in 2011. However, the collaboration has existed for at least another 10 years, focusing on courses and internship. With 20 million pairs of shoes sold every year, ECCO brings in-depth knowledge of footwear to the collaboration, while the students at Design School Kolding challenge and inspire the company in terms of innovation and design.

- The collaboration agreement gives us a unique framework for letting students work with footwear. Thanks to ECCO we are able to ensure an ambitious talent development of a new generation of footwear designers – a development that also benefits ECCO in the form of brand new perspectives on product development, says Line Rumhult.