On November 20, Danish leather goods brand ECCO released its Spring/Summer 2025 collaboration with French designer Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, a fusion of the heritage house’s fine leather and Nouchi’s vision for his own namesake brand LGN, a label that blends officewear and erotica through sharp silhouettes. The collaboration marks the launch of season five of ECCO.kollektive, a strategy ECCO began in 2022 to spotlight individual designers who represent the brand’s legacy of craftsmanship. This year’s lineup for ECCO.kollektive includes collections with Berlin-based Ottolinger and menswear darling Craig Green, two fashion brands whose contemporary edge puts aligns with a new era of consumers.

Nouchi is representative of a generation of young designers who interrogate queerness and masculinity, yet steps out as first in class with sharp approaches to technique and motif, quickly developing codes including the signature slit design in his mainline swimwear.

On the eve of a fabulous launch dinner at the yet-to-open Café Margaux in New York, Nouchi answered a few questions with Document about material science, the body, and the reappropriation of bourgeois red.

Colin Boyle: When did the conversations begin with ECCO.kollektive, in terms of joining as a guest designer? What do you think stood out about your work?

Louis-Gabriel Nouchi: We’ve collaborated since the Fall/Winter 2024 collection, as ECCO supported the brand directly with the leather. It was so strong, as leather has been a key element that I loved working on from the start, that the team from kollektive proposed [that I] be part of the project after a few seasons.

Leather is so sensual, brutalist, it has a specific smell. It’s really naturally linked to all the sensations we want to express in LGN. It’s talking a lot about the archetype of masculinity also, which is something I’m quite obsessed with.

Colin: ECCO has a long history and a wide supply chain. Were you able to push your design ideas in new directions with the wider assets at your disposal?

Louis-Gabriel: Definitely in terms of creation, it’s a pure luxury being able to develop new kinds of leather. ECCO has been extremely progressive in this area, and we’ve played a lot with all the possibilities that they offer us: over wax, polished, new types of dying. The supply chain is really clean and local, which is key for this category. I was able to finally develop ideas that I was doing since school, like how to make leather stretch without using an actual stretch leather.

Colin: Can you comment on how the collaboration fits into your broader vision? What are some personal favorite pieces for you?

Louis-Gabriel: It fits completely in with the fact that I’m also a real geek in material development. I love to play with all the connotations implied by it.

My favorite piece is the bag that we are launching right now. The slit, a signature of the LGN brand, is becoming a handle, a logo. Technology is always a challenge, so it also shows the technical level and reach with ECCO to make it that minimal and radical.

Colin: Your work plays with eroticism and the body in bold, often unorthodox ways. How did you pull those themes into the lens of ECCO and ECCO.kollektive, which has a broader scope and a generationally diverse audience?

Louis-Gabriel: I wanted to work with the formal kind of archive from ECCO, but make them more sexy and contemporary. We [were] using a black, very shiny, new abrasive leather, in a very minimal and radical design, twisting the classic designs and giving them a new level of intellect and sensuality.

Colin: The oxblood red color in the collection is iconic, and you used similar hues in your own Spring 2025 collection for LGN, joining white and black. Can you talk about why your palette and usage of colors, and what the choice of white, black, and red mean to you? What emotions do you convey with these choices?

Louis-Gabriel: Colors have meanings, and I love to play with that. Oxblood is linked for me to beauty in the world, sensuality, and a certain idea of opulence, like the old French bourgeoisie.

It can also be flesh. Black and white are always the base of all LGN collections. It’s this idea of elegance, codes from tailoring—the black suit paired with a white shirt—or it can also be the most archetypal colors for underwear, which are very strong items from LGN. It’s all about the body.

The collection is now available for purchase on ECCO.kollektive.com