Challenging the NYT narrative Of Swedish Fashion
Yes, I am talking about that interview of Toteme founders, Elin Kling and Karl Lindman, with Swedish journalist Alva Nyblom
This conversation is part of the series The Underrated Fashion Professionals Talks in which I interview fashion professionals from all over the world about different aspects of the industry.
I talked again with Swedish journalist
. In our previous conversation, we talked about fashion journalism and fashion in Sweden. We also touched upon how many English-speaking journalists—read, mostly Americans—portray Scandinavian fashion.When the New York Times Style published an article entitled "Why Do Americans Want To Dress Like Swedes?" we thought it was another occasion to examine how Swedish fashion is written about in an established American newspaper. Below is our conversation.
I’ll share the full NYT article in chat later. To access it, you need
a profile on Substack.
I found the article's title, ‘Why Do Americans Want To Dress Like Swedes?’ misleading. I expected the article to be about many Swedish brands, why people like these brands, and everything else, but then it was all about Toteme.
What about you?
I think you're onto something. Titles often tend to be misleading. I saw an article from the Wall Street Journal about this coat with the built-in scarf, which was also mentioned in the New York Times article.
The Wall Street Journal titled it ‘Why every woman wants this $1,130 coat’. And surely not every woman wants it.
I mean, I get they want you to click on it. But I find myself thinking about this more often, especially in fashion journalism, because it's misleading in so many ways.
Sorry to interrupt you. I'm also wondering if it's not something specific to American fashion journalism to have such misleading titles because they are such a consumerist and trend-driven society. So they will tell you, ‘This is the brand you need to follow,’ ‘This is the coat you need to buy’. That's the feeling I had when I first saw the title of that article. The WSJ piece you mentioned is in the same vein.
I agree. Not too long ago, I had a conversation with someone who told me that there's a worshipping culture in America.
So, if you don't worship a god or something like that, you must have someone or something to worship, like many have Taylor Swift or Beyoncé. And fashion is the same. If you like Toteme, you go all in for Toteme, The Row, or Khaite, which they mentioned. You go all in for that aesthetic, so you're obsessed. That’s worshipping. And I think that has to do with what you mentioned, the consumerist culture, because you want to buy into the stuff you're worshipping.
That's why Taylor Swift is able to make such a tremendous amount of money on her shows and merch, not only in Europe but mainly in the US.
Here’s the NYT article’s tagline, ‘The Stockholm fashion label Toteme has a no-nonsense, “pragmatic” look and a lot of fans in New York.’
So, ‘the no-nonsense pragmatic look’ feels like the way the journalist decided to define Swedish style for me.
Agreed. And I think, in a sense, it's true. Swedes are very pragmatic and no-nonsense if you compare us to Americans, I think.
But you know, this is an article written by an American journalist about a Swedish couple who'd been living in the US for several years before they moved back to Sweden together. And I think they want to sell the brand as something very Swedish because it has something exclusive to it. But there are other Swedish brands, too.
Do you know Hodakova?
No.
She recently won the LVMH prize. She doesn't label herself or her brand as Swedish or the epitome of Swedishness. I think it has to do with her grandparents not coming from Sweden.
She takes bits and bobs from her heritage and is inspired not only by Swedes. And I think that's true in a sense for Toteme as well. But you know, they really like to tap into that very minimalistic, pragmatic part of Sweden, which I agree is part of the Swedish culture and Swedish fashion, though it's not true of all Swedish fashion and all Swedes if you know what I mean.
Yes, I completely understand what you mean. That's also why I wanted to see the article with you. When I was reading it, I felt like the writer was interviewing the founders of Toteme as if they were the gods of Swedish fashion and style, and what they said was absolute. So that's why I was a little bit concerned.
I also think because it's an article, it's obviously edited. Maybe they didn't say things exactly like the writer wrote them because you want to give an angle to your interview, right? So, I guess they might have said things that may be more expansive about Swedish style.
Yes, I agree. The journalist, Jessica Testa, hasn't really challenged anything they said about Swedish style. And if you look back just a couple of decades ago, Swedes were very fashion-forward and very advanced on gender equality. Many women were very early in wearing jeans, for example.
It was common to see most women wearing pants quite early in Sweden, which I think is really interesting. But what you don't see in this article is that we were very, very colourful during the 1960s and 1970s.
This part of Swedish fashion, which is very minimalistic, black and white with no frills, is quite new, I think—at least if I have my fashion history straight. But we had so many brands that were known worldwide at the time, and the style was very much large patterns, lots of colour, and very hippie and free.
We had velvet playsuits for both men and women, so you could have the same matching outfits in the 1970s, which was very fashionable. I think minimalism in Swedish fashion came maybe during the 1990s. Don’t quote me exactly on this, but I think it all started with Filippa K. Do you know that brand?
No, I don’t
Filippa K is a well-known and established brand in Sweden. It just celebrated its 30th birthday—it was founded in 93—and Toteme’s aesthetic resembled it in many ways.
So, it's not like Toteme is inventing something new. But I think they are the first minimalistic Swedish brand to have its goal set in the US. I believe the founders knew—having lived in New York for several years—that there was a market for it there.
Acne Studios was all the rage when I started working in fashion in 2014. It was the Scandinavian brand, the Swedish brand. And I don't remember it being defined as minimalistic. It was just cool. The only Swedish thing about the brand was that straight-faced smiley. They used a term to describe it as the Swedish way of being. I don’t remember what it was…
Lagom, probably.
Yes, that's the word. I remember that when I was writing the copy for pieces with that straight-faced smiley, it was the only thing being defined as Swedish within the brand.
It's funny you say that because before we started talking I wrote down about other Swedish brands that I could think of that have an international, European or American audience. Hodakova and Acne Studios were among them and distinguished themselves by not defining themselves as super Swedish or making clothes with a super Swedish aesthetic.
I feel like neither of them has had that angle to their brand. I think it's so interesting. And I'm wondering what America or Americans interpret Swedishness to be when Toteme now wants to tap into that Swedishness.
I wonder if it's changed for them or if it's just that Elin Kling and Karl Lindman—the founders of Toteme—know that it's an angle that will work for selling their clothes.
That's their angle. I cannot talk about the quality, but if I look at the cuts and the colour palette, it's the same aesthetic as Khaite and The Row. The only difference is that they are not American. It's the storytelling behind it that is making it so palatable to people.
Exactly. Toteme has just celebrated its 10th anniversary, but saying it is innately Scandinavian makes it sound like it has been around for so much longer. Plus, the minimalistic Swedish style is not that old.
Something else that struck me was that when the journalist asked them about the meaning of the word "totem" at the beginning of the article, I found their explanation so flat:
“One of the meanings of the word ‘totem’ - and there are lot- is a symbol for the like-minded,” Mr. Lindman, 42, said.
But Ms. Kling, 41, thought the name sounded too “masculine.” She was making clothes for women. So she suggested adding an “e”, elongating and softening the pronunciation. The addition also gave symmetry to a square-shaped monogram that Mr.Lindman, then the design director of Interview Magazin, had been developing."
Yes, 100%. I actually looked up what “totem” means in Swedish and English because I wanted to know its meaning.
They have the definition quite right. As Karl Lindman says, there's a lot of meaning behind the word, but in Swedish, totem means a symbol of an animal being a protective spirit.
When I hear the word “totem”, I just think of Native Americans. I don't think about something Scandinavian or European.
Yes. And that's a bit…I don't want to use the word concerning, but you wonder if they've researched it correctly.
That's the point. When I saw the explanation, I was like, ‘This is all you have to say?’
Exactly. And I mean, in Swedish, their definition is not wrong, but it is also very flat, as you say.
But I understand the meaning they want to give to it. They want to create something that gathers people with the same aesthetics or who want to live in the same way. But it's pretty bleak, I think. I don't buy that explanation.
I also think it's fascinating that the journalist wants to press on how they are both blonde and blue-eyed. As a journalist, I would never comment on someone's looks, heritage, or ethnicity if it wasn't absolutely necessary. And I think it's fascinating that in fashion, it's alright to do so.
The journalist seems to love this couple and the brand and wants to enhance their Swedishness for every buyer in America.
It's so funny you mentioned this because I'm so used to fashion using this type of stereotype that I didn’t even think about the deeper meaning behind it. It seemed trivial to me.
In Swedish media, it's very, very frowned upon to mention someone's ethnicity or looks unless it is to make a point or they're telling you, ‘I have blue eyes and blonde hair’, or ‘My grandparents came from Poland, so I'm learning this and this and this.’ You know, that sort of stuff.
Before our call, I quickly watched the Spring-Summer 2025 show they did in New York. There were some Black and Asian models. Though the cast was not all blonde and blue-eyed, most were. Most noticeably, all of them were very, very skinny.
I think it's so interesting that this brand also uses only skinny models. You know, I can absolutely appreciate Toteme and other minimalistic brands, but my concern will always be that I'm not going to look good in their clothes because you have to be a size 2 and 1.80m to look good in that if you know what I mean. So, they're designing for one kind of body type.
When I worked in Germany, I had many Swedish colleagues in the company for which I interned. I noticed that Swedish women and men came in all sizes and shapes. The Swedish women I knew weren’t that thin, but fashion wants us to believe so. As if they want us to think that looking like a model is a genetic trait in Sweden.
And that's not true. I mean, we eat, we like potatoes.
No, but seriously, I think that's the problem with brands like Khaite and The Row because they only use skinny models, and everything looks good on them.
I've never seen someone who is a bit over a size six wearing these kinds of clothes and looking comfortable. And it's so interesting as well because Elin Kling says in the article that she designs for working women, which makes it appear that if you happen to be one, apparently you don't have time to eat.
Only using thin models is a choice, and that’s alright. They can do it because fashion allows it, but it's not very inclusive.
And I feel like this article framing them as the epitome of Swedishness, so very keen on making something Swedish, makes me feel, in a way, that they're not very inviting to other people to buy and wear their clothes. And me, as a Swedish, though I'm blonde and blue-eyed, I'm not a size two, and I don't feel invited to wear these clothes. And I certainly wouldn't have.
I can't afford them. So, it's not a problem.
When I read the mention of blue eyes and blonde hair, it just felt like the journalist saw all Swedish people as one type. There is obviously immigration in Sweden, and there are Swedish people with various backgrounds, but even without including them, Swedish ‘originally’ from Sweden are not all blonde with blue eyes.
It's also a stereotype.
So, to return to our initial conversation, it would be necessary to have journalists from the place actually writing about fashion or interviewing these people because it would allow a more in-depth point of view. And maybe a Swedish journalist would have questioned the Swedishness of the brand.
And indeed, one question I wanted to ask you is: is Toteme popular in Sweden?
This interview is paywalled. If you enjoyed what you read so far, this is what expects you under the paywall:
How Toteme and luxury fashion are perceived in Sweden
How the journalist portray Toteme’s founders and Swedish culture
A comparison between IKEA and Toteme using their national identity as a selling point