Premium leather has always been a large-scale game, inaccessible to the makers who need it most. The Leather Vault reframed ECCO Leather's offer for a new audience: artisans, independent designers and small businesses who care about quality and provenance but can't buy at volume.
The work spanned brand strategy, identity design and campaign, including a distinct sub-brand built to feel premium and purposeful without overshadowing ECCO Leather's established legacy. The creative direction balanced craft heritage with a modern, accessible tone.
Digital
The digital experience was built around the Vault concept, premium leather as hidden treasure, waiting to be discovered. The site opens with a simple but intentional choice: browse the full leather collection, or explore Staff Gems, a curated edit refreshed monthly by the team, with stories from behind the material.
To deepen engagement, users can build moodboards directly on the platform — turning a product browse into a creative session. The recurring Staff Gems mechanic was designed to keep the platform alive well beyond launch, giving people a reason to return.
The photography was the visual heart of the Vault. Rather than styling leather as a finished product, we shot it as a material in its own right, close, textural, almost sculptural. Light was used to reveal surface character: the grain, the weight, the variation that makes each hide distinct.
The result was imagery that felt closer to fine art photography than traditional e-commerce, giving customers a genuine sense of what they were selecting, and reinforcing the idea that this leather was worth seeking out.
Social Media
Social extended the Vault's visual language directly from the campaign, the same texture-led photography, the same restrained aesthetic, kept consistent across every post and format.
Alongside the stills, behind-the-scenes content gave the platform its personality: the process of selecting and shooting leather, the details that don't make the final cut, the craft behind the material. It made the brand feel less like a shop and more like a world worth following.
The two content modes worked together,the campaign imagery built desire, the behind-the-scenes built trust.
Email Marketing
The email templates were built as direct extensions of the Vault identity, texture-forward imagery, restrained typography, and a layout system that kept the material central. Designed as modular templates, they gave the team flexibility to adapt content monthly while maintaining visual consistency across every send.
PR
Our visibility and reach were amplified through strategic PR initiatives, with our story gaining coverage in prominent media outlets and publications, playing a key role in the successful launch of our online store.
The PR managed by Karla Otto.
Collaborating with influencers, we've gained authentic endorsements.
featuring: Luke Neil
Event
The Vault was brought into the physical world through ECCO Leather's HOT-SHOP, a three-day leather think-tank workshop bringing together designers, artisans and industry. Rather than a traditional brand stand, the activation gave attendees direct access to the leather itself: handled, explored and discussed in the context of the Vault concept.
It was the clearest proof that the idea worked beyond digital, the same sense of discovery translated directly into a room.
3D
As digital prototyping becomes standard in fashion and product design, we saw a clear gap: designers working digitally had almost no access to accurate, high-quality leather textures. We closed it.
Every leather produced in the ECCO tannery was scanned and converted into a 3D texture library, made available through the Vault. Designers can now prototype with the actual material, seeing how it behaves, drapes and finishes — before a single hide is cut.
It turned the Vault from a materials shop into a genuine design tool.
