Street Smart

Golf heavyweight ECCO bows a transitional Junior Street line that goes from course to playground.

THE FIRST HYBRID golf shoe to hit the men’s market, the ECCO Street, was notably worm by two-time PGA Tour Player of the Year Fred Couples at the 2010 Master’s Tournament. Despite Couples coming in sixth place that year, the sidewalk-to-course pair had heads turning almost instantaneously and imitators scrambling to develop their own versions.

“We went from 0 percent of our business being hybrid golf shoes in 2009 to 60 percent of our business in 2011,” says David Helter, specialty sales director at ECCO. “We were the lone wolf, and after 2010, when the rest of the market saw what we did, everybody started to chase it.” For now it seems, this new concept is here to stay, as ECCO will size down the Street line to Junior Street for Spring ’12. The four-colorway collection correlates with the women’s and men’s designs, so the pairs are perfect for father-son and mother-daughter matching. Eyes fixated on what’s ahead, Helter sees the latest movement to sweep the green – natural motion footwear – as the next step for the brand’s kids’ offerings, and that ECCO will proceed by producing a takedown from the brand’s BIOM collection.