ECCO

Karl Toosbuy - the founder of ECCO - had a dream. He wanted to own a shoe factory and run his own business. Trained from an early age as a shoemaker, he gradually rose through the ranks and by his early thirties was managing a shoe factory in Copenhagen. The business, however was not his. So he decided to give up the security of a regular job, sell his home and move to Bredebro on the west coast of Denmark, just north of the German border. With his wife Birte and five-year-old daughter, Hanni, he rented a small house and took over an empty factory built by the local community to help create jobs in what was a predominantly agricultural town.