In partnership with ECCO

There’s a certain alchemy that happens when a designer enters a house with no pretense, no ego, just curiosity. For Natacha Ramsay-Levi, that alchemy sparked the moment she stepped into ECCO’s headquarters in Denmark. What she discovered was not the glossy facade of fashion’s usual machinery, but something quieter – an authenticity rooted in deep craft, radical innovation, and an unshakeable confidence in identity. It is here that ECCO and Ramsay-Levi’s collaboration has found its ground, and for Spring/Summer 2025, that ground feels stronger – and bolder – than ever.

“It wasn’t the type of company I’d been working with until now,” she admits, recalling her first tour through ECCO’s museum. “But I was amazed – amazed by the innovation, the awareness, the responsibility. Because they know exactly who they are, they can take risks. I remember Panos saying, ‘There is nothing to risk!’ That honesty was what I was searching for.”

That honesty underpins the fourth chapter of Ramsay-Levi’s ongoing partnership with the Danish house. For this season, the starting point was crystal clear: the BIOM C-TRAIL, a sneaker that embodies both technical performance and urban elegance. “This time I wanted to focus on one style and elevate it,” she explains, “to really emphasise the quality, the beauty, the lines, the materials – and to develop it across different platforms.” From there, the collection branched out: the revival of the BIOM® LITE, a featherlight archival design chosen for its simplicity, and the unexpected – a sneaker with a heel, an utterly hybrid idea that translates sneaker vocabulary into a silhouette you can walk in all day.

Where past seasons have sprawled across occasions and aesthetics, this one is distilled, deliberate. “The biggest difference was about focusing,” Ramsay-Levi notes. “It’s one strong point of view.” This focus unlocked new creative depth, especially in materials: instead of working one leather in multiple shades, uppers are now enriched with diverse combinations of textures. The palette remains organic, subtle, and quiet, yet rich with depth because of this interplay – cashmere, mocha, and clay tones lifted from the sportswear world and reimagined in ECCO’s soft ecological leathers.

Working with ECCO’s design director Niki Taestensen, Ramsay-Levi leaned into the “fun part”: technology. “Niki is a doer! He knows all the techniques at ECCO, and he really helped me to focus,” she says. This season, that focus meant not only celebrating ECCO’s sneaker DNA but bringing its comfort technology into heels – styles that usually don’t benefit from the BIOM sole, now reimagined with ECCO’s know-how. “For me, the technology is part of the inspiration,” she adds. “It’s not something I put on top of a design, it’s a starting point.”

Despite the experimental spirit, versatility remains central. Ramsay-Levi insists these are shoes meant to live in – whether that means wearing the BIOM C-TRAIL in the countryside with anything and everything, or discovering a heel that feels as walkable as a sneaker. “The versatility of a shoe is very important to me. It’s about not having a style you can only wear with one kind of clothing.”

If her years at Chloé and her collaborations with Nicolas Ghesquière honed a particular aesthetic vocabulary, her work with ECCO represents a loosening, a willingness to let the product lead. “It’s not about my signature in ECCO,” she says. “It’s about doing good for ECCO. They don’t need someone to tell them what to do – they want another point of view. I’m happy to help and be part of the team.”

Her pride, she says, comes from the collection’s subtlety – an elevated balance of materials, colours, and forms that feels round and complete. But even more, it comes from reciprocity. “That ECCO are proud of it – that’s what makes me proud. I came because I believed we could do something together.”

There is no big manifesto here, no call for disruption. What Ramsay-Levi has created instead is something grounded, collaborative, and quietly radical. Shoes that begin with sport and technicality, transformed into urban elegance. A designer who begins with trust and curiosity, transformed by joy. The result is ECCO x Natacha Ramsay-Levi Spring/Summer 2025: a collection that whispers where others shout, and dares to redefine what it means to walk with confidence.

Explore the full collection on the ECCO website.