Swedish Avant Garde Meets Berlin Fashion Week with Odeur
Petter Hollström and Gorjan Lauseger, Odeur
What is the main concept behind Odeur?
The concept of Odeur is to be the non-visible brand. The traditional word-based logotype is replaced with a scent in the garments that communicates the brand. The concept and ideas behind the concept have remained intact since the start, but the brand will always be under development as we come up with new collections and projects. From the start, the idea has been that both men and women should be able to wear our garments.
Where are your products made?
We are designing them in Sweden and then we have production in Italy, Portugal, Lithuania and Turkey.
How does the fashion scene in Sweden compare with Berlin?
The fashion scene in Sweden are aware of the rest of the world I would say. People are however generally perhaps a little bit more afraid of making their statements in fashion too obvious, and therefore people in general are well dressed and aware of trends, but tend to look the same as their friends. We have worked on a long term thinking in Berlin. We have never sold out the idea of Odeur and we always carefully choose who we want to work with in order to be presented in a nice way in Berlin. To earn popularity, and perhaps even more important - to be respected - you have to be honest and true to your ideas and products.
What is the inspiration behind your collections?
The collections are always a natural continuation of Odeur. However, we always tend to put up themes for each collection to help our process of creativity. So the inspiration may vary, but you will always feel that each collection comes from Odeur.
Do you have a particular ethos?
We try to work as sustainably as possible in our choice of fabrics and in terms of shipping methods and so on. Also, we never produce more garments than what we get orders on each season. This of course makes it harder for people that really want a product to get it, as it may be sold out. But we would rather work like that than the opposite and get stuck with huge stock quantities.
Tell us a little bit about your background and personal story.
I am originally from Täfteå, a small village of around 1500 people. It's located just outside of Umeå in the northern part of Sweden. I am a graduate in Graphic Design from Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm where I nowadays also give lectures in visual identity. Today I also work with branding and create visual identities for companies and organisations. But fashion has always been a personal interest since I was a child, and that is why I created Odeur as my examination project at Berghs. It never was supposed to turn into an actual brand, but there was interest from Japan and the rest is history... But I never studied fashion design.
What are your plans for Berlin Fashion Week?
We will participate in the Temporary Showroom event and also take part in the Premium Trade Show between July 2-4.
Event details here.