About HELO
I am Luca, founder of HELO.
I have been working since I was fourteen. That taught me early to take responsibility, to work things out myself and not to wait for someone to explain how something works.
HELO is not the first thing I have built. I have developed ideas, started projects, thought up brands and begun again from zero more than once. Some of it was good, some was not. Most of it was really an attempt to find out what I actually want to do.
HELO feels different. Perhaps because it brings together a lot of what has mattered to me for a long time: good design, products that actually serve a purpose, the ambition to do things better, and dogs.
My first dog, Ida, came from a shelter. She is ten years old today. She was my first dog and my first great love.
Today Helo and Bianco also live with me, two Italian Greyhounds. Through them I noticed all over again, in a completely different way, how little of what is sold for dogs is made for small, light and sensitive ones. Too heavy, too coarse, too playful, or simply not very beautiful.
That is exactly where HELO begins.
I did not want to start another dog brand that simply sells products. HELO should feel like the things I like to buy myself: pared back, considered, self-evident. Products where you can tell someone thought about every detail, without them having to explain themselves.
That is why we are not building a huge range straight away. We are starting small on purpose.
THE LEASH and THE HANDLE came out of one simple question: why does a dog leash always have to be built the same way as every other one?
At HELO the handle is its own modular part. Components can be combined, swapped and replaced independently of each other. Our products are made in small numbers, tested, changed and developed further.
Not because small is automatically better. But because right now we still have the chance to look very closely.
And because dogs were never just a target group to me, fifteen per cent of the goods value of every order goes to animal welfare, currently to Tierheim Berlin.
For more Idas. For more dogs that get the chance to find their home.
HELO is still small today. But of everything I have built so far, it is probably the one that means the most to me. And perhaps that is exactly why I want to get it right.
HELO Atelier
Berlin.
The material
The webbing is BioThane, a coated polyester weave. No leather, vegan. It takes on no water, wipes clean, and does not smell even after half a year. Every piece is made one at a time by hand, so no two batches are alike.
What we check
Next to the shop there is a journal. There we take claims from the dog trade and look up what the evidence actually supports: cooling mats, pressure vests, grain-free food, omega-3. Every piece ends by saying whether the claim holds or not. That includes our own pieces: Guide 005 says who a leash without a hand loop is not for.
Nothing thrown away
Photo samples, returns and single pieces from older runs do not end up in the bin but under Second Chances. Each piece says why it is there and what you can see on it.
Where we are
Gaillardstraße 17, 13187 Berlin. Not a shop to browse in, but if you live in Berlin you can collect an order here instead of having it posted.