Wout Speyers, winner Craft the Leather 2022 competition

Seven designers from around the world. Seven capsule collections in vegetable-tanned leather. ‘Craft The Leather’, the international creative competition promoted by the Genuine Italian Vegetable-Tanned Leather Consortium, was back for its 9th edition. This collections were exhibited at Lineapelle International Leather Fair in Milan, Italy, February 19-22 2023.

Seven capsule collections
The capsule collections are made by male and female students from the world’s most prestigious fashion schools. Lea Katrin Ellemann from the Amsterdam Fashion Institute (The Netherlands), Gonçalo Camboa from Central Saint Martins (London, United Kingdom) and Mirko Michelacci from ISIA Design (Florence, Italy). Marie With from the Kolding School of Design (Kolding, Denmark), Hannah Andergassen from NABA (Milan, Italy), Wout Speyers from the René van den Berg Academy (Hoofddorp /The Netherlands) and Jennifer Sims from the Royal College of Art (London/United Kingdom).

The competition
Craft The Leather is the training and promotion project of the Genuine Italian Vegetable-Tanned Leather Consortium. Which thus selects talented designers from international schools and institutes. The competition is divided into two phases, and included a training workshop in the summer of 2022 in the Tuscan tanning district to learn about the qualities and potential of vegetable-tanned leather. In the second part, each designer created a three-piece accessory collection using this material exclusively.

Craft The Leather Jury
Alongside the evaluations of the Technical Jury (Diane Becker, Faye Sevilla Smith and Liza Snook/Virtual Shoe Museum), entrants were also voted on by visitors at the Lineapelle fair and on the consortium’s social media.

The winner: Wout Speyers
The winner is Wout Speyers from René Van den Berg Academy with the collection: ‘The World is a Natural Product’. Wout Speyers presented a capsule collection of three accessories that inspire ‘travel with the essentials’, made entirely of vegetable tanned leather provided by member companies.

Jury: ‘Poetry meets craftmanship’, ‘Bold and confident designs. Strong and striking’, ‘The technique, the beauty of the shapes and elegance of structure are incredible’.

The Craft the Leather winner receives a cash prize from the Consortium towards continued education.

See the winning shoes and more shoes by Wout Speyers at the VirtualShoeMuseum.