ECCO

Why it is renowned

In 2018 ECCO's EXOSTRIKE Dyneema Edition, a shoe for fast hiking and the city, won a Red Dot Design Award for product design.¹² Its shoes and leather goods are sold in 101 countries.³ The first flagship store opened on Oxford Street in London in 1998.³ In February 2025 ECCO opened a flagship store in Mumbai, its fifth shop in India.⁴

The story

Karl Toosbuy, a trained shoemaker, and his wife Birte sold their home and moved to Bredebro in southwest Denmark, just north of the German border, to start their own shoe factory in 1963.⁵ Production later spread to Portugal, and under licence to Japan and Cyprus.³ ECCO now runs practically every step itself, from its own tanneries and shoe factories to wholesale and its shops.⁵ About 98 percent of its shoes come from its own factories in Portugal, Slovakia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and China.³ Hanni Toosbuy took over majority ownership of ECCO Sko A/S in 1997 and has controlled the group since; she is a co-owner of the ECCO Group and chairs its board.⁶

What to know it by

• ECCO tanneries³Its own tanneries in the Netherlands, Thailand, Indonesia and China
• Futura³1996Its research and design centre in Denmark
• Oxford Street flagship³1998The first ECCO flagship store, in London