LAB and ECCO Leather: The impact continues

The Faberge Big Easter EGG hunt, with a leather EGG.


Rachel Freire, one of the designers we involved in the Leather Hotshops was recently asked to design a giant Easter EGG for the Faberge Big Egg Hunt.  Her egg, made of ECCO Leather, is to be found somewhere in central London, alongside 200+ eggs designed by top artists and designers including Vivienne Westwood, Diane Von Furstenberg, Ridley Scott, the Chapman Brothers and many more.

Londoners have 40 days and 40 nights to spot as many eggs as they can, for a big cash prize. After this the EGGs will be auctioned off.  All proceeds to charities Elephant family and Action for Children.  The amazing thing is Rachel's ECCO Leather EGG has been placed right outside Louis Vuitton, and Rachel is the only artist to name a sponsor. What better way to associate ECCO Leather with top quality and to get the name out there in the public:


Read about it here

And watch Tom Parker Bowles open the Big EGG hunt here.

Exposure money cannot buy.  Not to mention all the sharing on blogs, twitter, photography sites, magazines and newspapers that ECCO Leather is already enjoying.  LAB loves great collaborations!

A LAB CREATIVE WORKSHOP!

Want to see what a LAB creative workshop might look like?

At the end of June LAB ran the 4th ECCO LEATHER Creative Hotshop. Over the 3 years LAB has been working closely with ECCO Leather to create a leather design process that they can run year after year to create innovative new collections.

The latest HOTSHOP was the best one yet - A 3 day workshop, just outside of Amsterdam with Shoe and Bag Designers, Technicians, Marketing, Sales and Leather designers from inside and outside of ECCO Leather. It's a hard working 3 days - but also fun, inspiring and productive.

Check out the Film on you tube: LAB: ECCO Leather Hotshop uncovered

Big Thanks to all at ECCO Leather for hosting another great Hotshop and to all the external designer participants for a great 3 days. The LAB team was Blanca Homberg and Clare Flynn facilitating and filmmaker Lotta Boman.

Couture Designer IRIS VAN HERPEN talks about the LAB creative hotshop process

The LAB team are super proud of 'up and coming' Dutch Designer IRIS VAN HERPEN who we started working with in 2008 just after her first acclaimed show at Amsterdam Fashion Week. Spotting and supporting emerging talent is very important to us at LAB, so after having IRIS in one of our designer focus groups, we set up a collaboration between IRIS and ECCO Leather.

It's been inspiring to work with Iris and have her participate in our creative hotshops process, and she's has done some stunning work. On the back of her visionary creations IRIS has cemented her position as an established design talent and has been named an official Couture Designer with a Haute Couture show in PARIS.

Above is an example of some of the stunning output, and watch the video below to see what IRIS says about working in the Hotshop creative Process we run for ECCO Leather.





And here is the visionary show:



A little film we made to showcase some of the top creative talents we at LAB have been lucky enough to work with recently.
Here you can see the visionary designers we've brought into our creative process to spearhead a leather innovation revolution which has put ECCO on the fashion map:

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Coming soon, a 'fly on the wall' short film documenting the latest creative hot shop process in June 2011 designed and run by a LAB team - see how we work and who we're working with this year!

LAB Collaboration with TODD LYNN and RACHEL FREIRE at LFW

It's been all go at LAB HQ, no time even for blogging!

In 2010/11 LAB have been working with some incredible talents including: Rock and Roll designer Todd Lynn, Edgy London based designer Rachel Freire and Dutch born couture designer Iris Van Herpen. Bringing these incredible design talents into our creative process has put our client ECCO Leather on the fashion map and resulted in some incredible innovations which has truly upped the stakes for high quality leather design in the fashion world. Check out the results at LFW 2011!






And MOK's review of the 2010 LFW Todd Lynn show:

Fashion and design innovator is creative director on a LAB team!

Remember Kylie Minogue's robot costume for her Fever tour? Or the otherworldly jewelry that appeared alongside the silver-heeled croc shoes at Fendi’s 2004 show? Or those Ungaro leather floral pins and bracelets that spawned a huge trend a few years ago?

The mastermind behind those crafts, widely known in fashion, design and film circles is Edward Griffiths. Griffiths was also the mysterious man behind the much photographed leather skeleton head for one of Boudicca's earlier shows, has done countless pieces for Alexander McQueen, made clear leather for Manolo Blahnik, among a myriad of other creations.

Having spent last week working alongside Edward in a ‘hands dirty’ creative workshop along with a multi-disciplinary group of super talented client-side design directors, creative technicians and sales and marketing representatives, LAB’s Bhanita Mistry said: “Ed is a rare talent to bring into the corporate innovation space; with obsessive attention to detail, infectious enthusiasm for his craft, an ability to move from concept to creation within hours, and stamina that is hard to match. The whole client / LAB creative chemistry was incredible. Designing numerous launch-worthy collections with beautiful prototypes within 3 days is an amazing achievement for all involved. Now, we all can’t wait to see some of these hit the stores or runways for A/W 2011!”

When not working with LAB, Ed is creating pieces from another time and place for Pixar’s upcoming Sci-Fi in production: ‘John Carter of Mars’.

LAB work leads to London Fashion Week collaboration

LAB recently involved rising star, fashion designer Iris Van Herpen in creative development research for client ECCO Leather. Van Herpen was so inspired by the product range that she collaborated with ECCO for her latest collection, a hit show sponsored by the brand for London Fashion week.

Iris Van Herpens' Spring/Summer 2010 collection was presented at the London Royal Festival Hall along with two other emerging designers, Bart Hess and Mattijs, as part of ‘Blow Presents…’ Thanks to ECCO and Van Herpen LAB was invited to front row seats.

The Dutch fashion designer enjoyed rave reviews with her avant-garde collection, Radiation Invasion. The premise was based on the designer’s exploration of radiation: where the audience is invited to imagine a world where radiation becomes tangible; seen and felt. “I think that in the future people will find ways to be able to see radiation which will develop a new dimension apart from the body. Imagine we could attract and reject radiation waves like a magnet. Being beautiful will then get a totally new and more extended form.”

Of ECCO leather Van Herpen says: "When I see a beautiful piece of leather it gives me inspiration right away. Leather is one of the few materials that keeps attracting me; its timeless."

We love it when a plan comes together!

The first post

Welcome to the LAB stimulating stuff blog!

This is where the LAB blogger will be posting the latest news about LAB projects, up and coming creative and design talents (including lab creative moonlighters) and stuff that stimulates us.

If you want to know more about LAB find us at:

www.creativecoachinglab.com