Smit & Zoon’s Design Challenge 20/21

We are excited and very proud to present to you Smit & Zoon’s Design Challenge, a competition between 5 talented young designers from 5 different countries. Their goal is to create shoes for the high-end of the fashion industry, with an emphasis on the sustainability of their products. The challenge started in October and will have its grand finale at the 200th anniversary of Smit & Zoon, in May 2021.

A collaboration between Smit & Zoon and Arsutoria School
The Design Challenge is an initiative of Smit & Zoon to show the world, and in particular the younger generation, what a beautiful and sustainable by-product of the meat industry leather can be. To reach the designers of the future Smit & Zoon reached out to Arsutoria School in Milan to join forces. A logic coalition: Arsutoria’s education with an eye for quality and design fits perfectly with Smit & Zoon’s passion for sustainable leather. It’s a collaboration that both parties are very proud of, leading to co-creation on a high level.

The assignment
The challenge for the designers is to create a shoe collection consisting of 6 styles in total with chrome-free and sustainable tanned leather. Their project should be timeless, adaptable to trends and time and according to new social and environmental standards. All subsidiaries of Smit & Zoon have played their part in delivering sustainable leather, Nera for the tanning, Smit for the retanning and Codyeco for the finishing. The leather article is tanned with the new innovation Zeology.

About the initiative
The fashion industry is too often connected with exploitative working conditions, microplastics, pollution and rapid resource consumption. A system change is needed. With 200 years and seven generations of experience, we are proud of Smit & Zoon’s history. We also know that tradition is without value if not connected with ambition. That’s why we like to show our respect for the past by a clear path to an appealing and sustainable future. The Design Challenge is exactly on that path.