Meet the creative minds behind the ECCO x RAL7000 collaboration, the Milan-based collective Ral7000 Studio that’s all about pushing the limits. From their consultancy expertise to their creative drive, the team’s mission remains crystal clear: to transcend the boundaries of design as a whole. Fresh from their latest collaboration with ECCO, it is evident their dedication to innovation is woven into their identity, resulting in a product that perfectly captures ECCO’s Danish heritage while including their own Milanese flair. We caught up with co-founders Micheal Cutini and Marco Simonetti to discuss the origins of this partnership and the challenges of pushing the envelope. From the technicality of shoe design to the story behind the studio’s name, this conversation offers an insightful glimpse of what it takes to merge tradition with innovation in today’s creative industry.
Hey guys, thanks for taking your time to do this interview! Let’s dive right in–– how did the collaboration come about?
Micheal: Honestly, Ecco had been on our radar for a while. We were keeping an eye on how they were evolving and noticed that our values seemed to align pretty well. So, this collab felt like a natural fit. We decided to split the collaboration into two phases. Phase one was all about taking existing silhouettes and adding our own twist to them. And for phase two, which we’re super excited about, we’re starting fresh with brand new designs and toolings from scratch.
Can you say something about these shared values? Like, what does that entail?
Michael: Absolutely! One of the things that initially clicked for us was our shared work ethic. We’re both workaholics behind the scenes, so we speak the same design language as Ecco’s team. We’re not just about coming up with creative ideas—we’re also all about making those ideas a reality. That common drive really helped us connect with their design team right from the beginning. They’re genuinely down-to-earth and human, which isn’t always the case when dealing with big company CEOs or like heads of human resources. They can very often have a bit of that… cold approach, you know?
Yeah I can imagine. I guess on a general note, what do you feel you contributed to each other?
Marco: On our side I can say we definitely brought a fresh design aesthetic and a progressive design language to the mix. Echo appreciated that because, you know, we’re all about pushing the limits. But we also had to reel it in a bit so we didn’t go too far too fast. We wanted to give the market and both our communities a chance to really soak in this new collaboration. And then on their end, they offered some serious engineering know-how. Their technical expertise was a huge bonus for us.
Micheal: Yeah, their technical insights were invaluable. Ecco’s been around for a century, so they really know their stuff.
It’s good that you touched on the technical side of things. What’s the hardest part about designing a shoe? Like, what’s that one thing you’d love to do but feels almost impossible? You know what I mean?
Marco: Mhhh that’s a good question. Thinking of phase two of this collab, we’re really into the outsole construction, especially the direct injection technique…
What’s direct injection?
Marco: So, direct injection is this old-school way of making outsoles, but Echo has pushed it to a different level of technology. Basically, once you have the upper ready, you insert it into a mould, and the outsole is injected directly onto it. There’s no bonding or stitching involved. With other methods, you’d have to bond the outsole to the midsole and then to the upper, but with this, everything gets injected and melded together all at once
Michael: It makes for a super long-lasting shoe. There’s no way to pull the midsole and upper apart. With our new project, we’re trying to push the limits even further, so using different materials into the outsole and then blending the outsole more into the upper–– really just getting rid of sharp lines.
Very interesting, I’m excited to see you guys put together all these ideas. You already mentioned you got inspired by the skateboard… But I guess looking at it more in depth, how did the creative process go?
Michael: Well, at first, this shoe was a completely different beast. The midsole was already an existing design from the Ecco street family–– imagine their version of a Stan Smith: a low-cut, super clean classic. We wanted to flip that on its head and create something totally different, something Ecco wouldn’t normally do with this structure.
We were into the skate trend, but we didn’t want to make just another skate shoe because, well, there are already tons of those. So we decided to focus on visually expressing the contrast between our two brands. That’s how we landed on the idea of merging the skate, which represents the city and our vibe as RAL, with the boot, symbolising the outdoorsy feeling that Echo is known for. We mashed those worlds together, and the feedback from the community was super positive on both sides.
Looking now at how you worked together. What do you feel is the most valuable thing about this collaboration?
Marco: For me, it’s all about pushing boundaries on both sides.
Michael: I guess for me personally the most important part has always been the beginning of the collaboration—we were given such a big opportunity and they believed in us, and still believe in our vision. As a design studio, we’ve done consultancy work for big brands around the world, but we were usually ghost designers you know. With this project, we get to put our logo on it, and it’s not just B2B. And that’s a big deal for a young studio like ours, especially since RAL is only four years old.
Just out of curiosity. Why did you choose the colour grey for the studio name?
Marco: Omg actually we have a fun story behind it! We used the RAL 7000 color scheme when we built our first studio, so everything is shades of grey. We’ve got two studios now, one in Milan and one in central Italy, but that’s where the name came from— essentially keeping it clean and sticking with what we loved. And yeah, the name is a nod to the RAL color reference, which is pretty cool since no one had done it before.
Words by Rogier Vlaming
