Dr. Martens launches responsible Gennix Nappa collection

Dr. Martens is launching a new footwear collection with "an innovative and responsible approach to next gen materials".

The heritage footwear brand will re-engineer leather offcuts to create the range, saving usable materials that would otherwise go to landfill. The brand is sure this will have no effect on the shoes’ durability or comfort.

To tell the story of the launch, Syn developed a "raw and honest aesthetic" for the collection, in an effort to reflect the shoemaker’s approach to responsible manufacturing. Syn is an omni-channel focused creative agency. Founded in 2019, it works with the likes of Eastpak, Under Armour and Adidas.

The company's creative team spent two days in the Dr. Martens factory capturing the creation process of the new collection. The final campaign aims to highlight responsible innovation across both boots and shoe styles.

Michael Boaler, EMEA Head of Marketing & Global Media at Dr. Martens explained how the collaboration aided the creation of the collection: "Sustainability is a sensitive subject so we were keen to be open and transparent in the content we shared with our wearers.

"Additionally, the production process for Genix Nappa is relatively complex which added a layer of needing to keep it simple while not leaving anything out. Syn did a great job of ensuring we told this innovation story honestly by capturing the material, process and  product in a way that is easy for our wearers to follow and understand."

Paul Birkhead, Creative Director and Co-founder of Syn, said the collaboration had been "one of those passion projects that everyone involved from both agency and brand were all in on".

He added: "The timings were tight and the story that needed to be told was massively important so it relied on a true collaboration between the team at Dr. Martens and ourselves. The outcome is one that we are particularly proud of. A complex process distilled into a simple narrative and told in a tactile and transparent way."

Senior Account Manager Hope Williams said: "Genix Nappa is a new story for Dr. Martens, so we needed to explore and pin down how to tell a sustainable material story through the Dr. Martens lens.

"The aim was to document the people and processes that are going into their future-facing products, so we decided to film in the factory itself so we could hero ‘the way’ and unpack ‘the why’.

"Thanks to our intimate knowledge of the Dr. Martens brand we already knew how to capture product, but for this we wanted to focus on the process. We felt an innovation with sustainability at its core should be shown not sold, and being transparent about the aims and authentic processes was important in both informing consumers of the new technology and highlighting that it’s not yet perfect, but part of Dr. Martens’ process to becoming more sustainable."