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In 2017, designer Lisa Bergstrand left Saint Laurent and France on a mission to change the fashion industry.
The starting thought was even with all the resources in the world at Saint Laurent, they could not make clothes in a good way.
Why was that? To answer the question, Lisa started her own brand that would make no compromises in making the highest quality clothing.
While investigating, it was discovered that Swedish farmers throw away their wool.
A NEW SWEDEN thus was started to buy wool from Swedish farmers who otherwise would throw it away.
As the artistic director for the brand, I created the name, the identity, and the world for the brand to live in.
The brands’ core was making everything in the best way possible. This meant making everything as locally as possible. Swedish materials, Swedish manufacture.
With this in mind, the brand needed to reflect this. It would be rooted in a modern vision of Swedishness.
All the typefaces sourced were from Swedish type designers. Models were cast that were representative of modern Sweden.
Our first product was a 100% wool jersey sweatshirt, with which we won the Swedish Design Award with.
We followed this up with a collection of woven garments, and continued our journey of making clothes to last lifetimes.
The focus on sustainability went down to the execution — the labels were hand printed with vegetable based ink on organic cotton and linen. The Nordic cross detail was embroidered to create a brand detail exposed on the back of the garment, inspired by brands like Margaret Howell and Maison Margiela
Building a business has brought in my existing skills of brand, strategy, design, art direction, e-commerce and marketing, and taught me new skills in managing a business.
We successfully managed to sell A NEW SWEDEN to retailers globally, received recognition in Monocle, Forbes, the BBC, and the Guardian.
In 2025 we decided to close A NEW SWEDEN and focus on other ventures.
