The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2023
ekn's Kamthala is the first sneaker designed in Bangladesh and produced in Europe
German eco-shoe brand ekn and Accenture Song hand the design to Bangladeshi designer Rokaiya Ahmed Purna — and make the vegan sneaker in Europe.
ekn
What it had to solve
The fashion industry has long been characterised by the exploitation of workers in the Global South, with design and profit kept in rich countries. German sustainable shoe brand ekn, Accenture Song Brand Germany and Bangladeshi designer Rokaiya Ahmed Purna set out to make a sneaker that disrupts that category and celebrates self-empowerment.
How it works
The fashion industry has long been characterised by the exploitation of workers in the Global South — the design and profit staying in rich markets while the labour moves elsewhere. ekn, a German sustainable shoe brand, decided to make that geography the thing its next sneaker would disrupt.
Working with Accenture Song Brand Germany, ekn brought in Rokaiya Ahmed Purna, a female designer from Bangladesh. She created the ekn Kamthala, described as the first sneaker designed in Bangladesh and produced in Europe — a deliberate inversion of the usual chain, and a celebration of self-empowerment.
The project's point is carried by the object itself: a shoe that demonstrates powerful ideas come from all over the world, sitting in a category that usually says otherwise. It is preserved in D&AD's awards archive as a design that tried to change the story fashion tells about who imagines and who makes.
Why it lands
- The design is the proof: a product whose authorship geography reverses the exploitation narrative without a word of campaigning.
- Giving the design role to a Bangladeshi woman makes the empowerment concrete and named, not abstract.
- Manufacturing in Europe deliberately breaks the usual low-cost-labour assumption, making the point structural rather than rhetorical.
- As a first-of-its-kind claim, the shoe gives press and buyers a simple hook: designed in Bangladesh, made in Europe.
What it did
The Kamthala made the argument physical: a wearable object demonstrating that powerful ideas come from all over the world, carried into the very category it was meant to disrupt. The work is held in D&AD's awards archive.
What you can take
When an industry's usual geography is the injustice, invert authorship itself: let the exploited region design and the privileged one produce, so the product proves the point every time it is worn.
Since then
The Kamthala launched in early 2023 as ekn's statement product, and the project is held in D&AD's awards archive. The archive page records the concept and credits rather than sales figures, and none are claimed here — the case is about making the product itself argue for a fairer fashion geography.
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