DESIGN CHALLENGE
Arsutoria x Smit & Zoon
Smit & Zoon, leader in chemical products for the leather industry, reinforces its best business practices through sustainability, a value that is also the focus of the “Sustainable Leather Contest”.
Leather makes the difference. A by-product of the meat industry, it is recovered, enhanced, and ennobled through tanning so the creativity of designers and stylists can take flight. Used in the fashion, upholstery, and automotive industries, leather with its beauty and special features is capable of inspiring and inciting emotion in the end customer. Since this material is genuinely capable of making all the difference, it is necessary for the leather value chain to be both socially and ecologically sustainable.
This is the ‘mission’ of Smit & Zoon, leader in chemical products for the leather industry, which in 2021 will arrive at the milestone of 200 years of successful business and innovation.
Smit & Zoon’s commitment to sustainability is also renewed in its educational activities with a contest aimed at encouraging young creative talents to conceive a collection in which sustainable leathers are the protagonists.
Smit & Zoon’s chosen partner in this initiative is the Arsutoria School, an internationally recognised institute for design and technical training in the field of shoes.
The contest will see five youths, selected from among the best former students of Arsutoria School, compete with one another in the creation of a capsule collection made up by six footwear models featuring sustainable leathers and Smit & Zoon chemical product treatments. Two prototypes per finalist will then subsequently be selected and developed.
For more information and to follow the evolution of the participants' works, go to the page dedicated to the competition: Sustainable Leather Contest by Smit & Zoon
Design Contest Proposal by Laure WOLFF.
STYLE CONVEYS TIMELESSNESS
ICONIC, CLASSIC and TRADITIONAL have endless ways to be RE-NEWED.
MATERIAL CONVEYS DURABILITY
Leather with its innovation remains the most SENSIBLE choice of material for footwear for its adaptability and durability.
CONSTRUCTIONS CONVEY INCLUSIVITY
The styles I designed are suited for both men and women in an idea of UNITY and acceptance. They are also imagined to be CROSS GENERATIONS.
FINISHES CONVEY MODERNITY
The finishes proposed inspire to reconsider segments.
Where does classic end? When does fashion start?
CAN WE MERGE THE BOUNDARIES?
Stitches convey a return to craft and A LINK between our heritage and what we today are.
Durable, sensible, inclusive, adapted.
Iconic footwear styles from all over the world can endlessly be reshaped to suit contemporary reality, desires and concerns.