- David Hellqvist talks to Our Legacy and Trés Bien about their collaborate brand of formalwear and 90s skate attitude
These days, plenty of high-end fashion stores jump on the in-house brand bandwagon; they’ve built a name for themselves, think they know what their customers want and have realised that the financial margins are a lot better in such retail adventures. Often, though, those lines end up being plain, safe and boring. But it seems that Trés Bien, Sweden’s premium web store for high-end and contemporary fashion, didn’t get that memo. Instead, Hannes and Simon Hogeman have hooked up with long time friends and stalwarts of style, Our Legacy, for a collaborative label called Welcome.Clearly there’s mutual respect between the Hogeman brothers and Our Legacy head honchos Cristopher Nying and Jockum Hallin. Our Legacy has been making waves with their understated but qualitative menswear for years, while Trés Bien is today a worldwide force when it comes to curatorial retail. No wonder Welcome’s debut season is a bit of a happening. We’ve taken two of the key pieces and looked closer at the details. The wool camouflage coat and nylon Coach jacket nicely sum up the two main directions within in the collection. There’s always been a strong element of formalwear in Our Legacy and on Trés Bien’s cyber shelves. But at the same time, there’s a touchof adolescent attitude, a sense of 90s skate culture – or whatever these lads were up when growing up – to the clothes. Tellingly, the garments have names such as Skunk, Mushroom and Helium Balloon. The combination – both between styles and the two companies – work as they complete rather than compete with each other. Welcome to a brave new world.
David Hellqvist: Why launch a separate label next to Our Legacy?
Jockum Hallin: We believe it’s a great opportunity to try new ideas on a different platform. It’s also an interesting challenge to do something that can stand for itself from the start since we do not use Our Legacy or Très Bien in the labelling of Welcome.
David: What are the main differences?
Cristopher Nying: We see this very objective and try not to be influenced by the Our Legacy and Très Bien aesthetics. The main difference is that we are working together, from the same platform, sitting under the same roof for Welcome.
David: What do you gain from working with Trés Bien?
Jockum: Très Bien are long-time friends, so besides working close with someone who’s company your really enjoy, we are able to use both parties strengths in every way. Welcome allows two rather small organisations to work freely, but with twice the power!
David: What’s Welcome’s sartorial message?
Jockum: It’s a middle finger to all your staples collecting dust in the wardrobe.
David: Who’s idea, and why, was Welcome?
Jockum: Welcome was born while discussing a deeper co-operation with Très Bien about two years ago. The Welcome-umbrella includes the collection, retail and brand ideas, but also the idea of branching out into new territories.
David: How would you define the collection?Cristopher: The collection is influenced by classic garments that’s been enchanted and bewitched – they’ve become poisoned by hallucinate drugs.
David: Any standout pieces for you?
Cristopher: The Mushroom Coat, Helium Balloon T-Shirt, Coach jacket because of its simplicity but still made in one of the world’s best nylon.
David: As a shop, what made you want to go into clothing design?
Simon Hageman: Over the years we’ve been working closely with a bunch of brands and designers, so it kind of grew on us gradually. When we started talking about the project with Our Legacy it felt very natural and the process has been quite easy. I think that Trés Bien has more similarities to a fashion brands than to other web stores.
- David: Why did you want to collaborate with Our Legacy?
Simon: We have done many different things with them over the years so when we closed the temporary Welcome store in Stockholm a year ago, we already had this project planned.
David: How did collaboration work, who did what?
Simon: Cristopher Nying from Our Legacy is in charge of the actual designing, but we’ve been a bunch of people, from both sides working with everything from ideas, lookbooks and materials.
David: What do you think that Très Bien brought to the table?
Simon: Right now we’re working on the Welcome SS13 line and to tell you the truth, when we sit down and talk it’s not that hard. I think we all know where we want this to go for the next season and what we all need to bring…David: How would you explain the collection to people, what’s its USP?
Simon: There are no rules for Welcome; it’s a razor sharp suit next to a pair of gym pants; we can do whatever we want with this project. With Très Bien, we already have a formula of how do things so this gives a safe haven to be creative. For A/W12, everything seems to be on drugs, but look a little bit closer and things are not always what they seem.
David: Have you brought in third parties, any nice collabs within the collection?
Simon: Yeah, we’ve made a running shoe in patent leather and waterproof nylon with Common Projects and also a round toe shoe in cordovan and suede with Tricker’s. Both due to drop any day!
David: Do you have a favourite piece?
Simon: For me it’s definitely the coach jacket and the skunk sweater.
Photography Nikolas VentourakisClick here for more info on Welcome
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