Eckhaus Latta is at the forefront of New York’s creative new wave. Known for their DIY style and diverse casting, designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta have succeeded in crafting a new, artistic look that has loosed the shackles of the city’s association with commerciality. Based between there and LA, and leading a swathe of similarly minded designers in their wake (including Eric Schlösberg, Vaquera and Gauntlett Cheng, who actually met while interning at the brand), they’ve now spent five years at the helm of the most exciting and energised movements in NYFW in recent memory. Now, the duo have collaborated with Spanish footwear brand Camper.

Combining their off-kilter aesthetic with Camper’s footwear expertise, they’ve designed a knitted shoe comprising of a athletic sock merged with a block heel. “The shoe stemmed from a long-running interest in mixing knitwear with footwear,” says Eckhaus. “There have been many experiments and variations of this concept in prior Eckhaus Latta collections, as well as in our personal explorations with clothes. Collaborating with Camper was very exciting as a means of properly realising this concept into a functional object.”

To showcase the collection, Eckhaus and Latta enlisted German filmmaker and their long-term collaborator Alexa Karolinski to shoot a film, which can be watched below. Shot in Mallorca (the location of Camper’s HQ), the four-minute short stars two more of their seasoned collaborators: model and actress Hari Nef and performance artist Martine Gutierriez, who appear roaming around the Spanish island. “We became very inspired by Camper’s late 90s Walk Don’t Run campaign, which captures Mallorcan and Spanish landscapes with normal people, occasionally in the shoes,” says Latta. “We felt inspired to use that as a jumping off point but our way, with our clothes and our people.” 

Eckhaus and Latta are known for enlisting members of New York’s creative community to model for them, such as alternative R&B star Dev Hynes aka Blood Orange (who’s also created soundtracks for their shows) and artists including Alexandra Marzella, Bjarne Melgaard, India Menuez, Juliana Huxtable and Michael Bailey Gates. They have employed Hari to model for them on multiple occasions – in fact, they were among the first designers to do so. They met her a long time ago now, back when she was assisting casting director Preston Chaunsumlit. “She has a super strong presence and understanding of herself which is very exciting,” says Eckhaus. “She’s hilarious and brilliant,” continues Latta. “Hari is truly one of the sharpest tools in the shed.”

Camper Together with Eckhaus Latta is released in selected Camper stores and camper.com on Thursday, November 10th.