Stocholm New No.12 — The Royal issue (2002), with Mikael Jansson’s famous cover image of Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria
More than seven years after our most recently published issue: Stockholm New magazine nominated to yet another prestigious Nordic design prize!
We've claimed it before, but it's worth repeating: in the fleeting world of fashion and fashion magazines, it's touching how our own magazine Stockholm New continues to "live", more than seven years after our most recent issue was published back in May 2002 (Stockholm New No.12 — the Royal issue, with the famed Mikael Jansson image of our Swedish Crown Princess Victoria on the cover.)
Another proof of this "lasting" quality is that Stockholm New, richly awarded in its time, has now, seven years later, been selected for an exclusive Nordic design exhibition and nominated for yet another prestigious new Nordic design prize.
It's the new Danish design and furniture fair CODE, which is staged for the very first time in the Bella center in Copenhagen in September — with the ambition of becoming the Nordic region's leading design event — that introduces a brand new Nordic design exhibition and a design prize with the name Nordic Selected. A number of objects from the categories graphic, industrial, interactive and architectural design have been selected as representing the best Nordic design from the ten years. The nominated objects will be presented in a printed catalogue, on the web and in an exhibition at the CODE fair. The exhibition's head of curators, Professor Florian Hufnagl, will then select shortlists of first ten, then three objects that will be highlighted in the exhibition during the fair. Finally, one single object will be crowned with the prize Nordic Selected Award for the best Nordic design of all categories from the past decade.
Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland are each represented in the exhibition/competition by two curators. The Swedish curators, who have nominated Stockholm New in this honorable context, are Monica Förster and Björn Dahlström. We're most greatful of course!
The notorious kiss...
Our famous "kiss" travels on around the Globe...
Have you by chance seen the two features from Sweden that were aired recently on the popular American comedy show "The Daily Show", and which are now circling the Globe in various "social media"? If not, check them out, because they're quite funny and more than a bit viscious, with famous comedian Wyatt Cenac visiting Stockholm in wintertime, surrounded by trademark Swedish blondes, conducting amusing interviews with people like ex trade minsiter Leif Pagrotsky and ABBA star Björn Ulweaus (labeled "two bearded gnomes"...). The programmes are called "The Stockholm Syndrome", alluding to Sweden being used in the propaganda by Barack Obama's political enemies. The shows makes some prime Sweden promotion in any case, that's for damned sure, so our dear clients at The Swedish Institute should be complemented for acting swift in helping facilitate the production of the shows. At the end of the second show, there are a few clips from our dear official Swedish image film, including, of course, the notorious "kiss" which became so controversial. We're still amazed that an innocent kiss between two adult women can arouse powerful emotions still in this day, but we're greatful for the attention regardless.
Go in and see our Sweden film on Sweden's official website Sweden.se, why not, and read all those touching comments from people from all around our entire Globe.
PS. Speaking of Sweden's international image, our official Swedish tourist catalogue Sweden 09 (see further down in this column) is now available in complete digital versions on Sweden's internationally much awarded official tourist website www.visitsweden.com. DS.
Vanity of Man in Stockholm!
A selection of Nicho Södling's unique series of fashion portraits from Omo in Southwestern Ethiopia are shown at Fotografiska Antikvariatet here in Stockholm over the next month.
Starting this weekend, over the next month, images from Nicho Södling's unique photographic project Vanity of Man are shown for the first time here in Stockholm (read much more about this fantastic project further down in this column, and also on our blog). It's a small selection of prints that will be on display at Fotografiska Antikvariatet on Torkel Knutssonsgatan 31 in Södermalm here in Stockholm. The opening is on Saturday 9 May, and the exhibition will continue until 9 June (preliminary date). The exhibition, which is starting to attract international publicity, will then be shown in its current full scale in Landskrona Museum in Southern sweden, opening in February 2010.
Anna Holtblad autumn/winter 09
Anna Holtblad autumn/winter 09
We are pleased with our new lookbook for our dearl old friend and longtime client Anna Holblad, and her coming autumn/winter collection. The lookbook is photographed by Oscar Falk and styled by Maria Virgin, another two old friends and longtime collaborators. The model is from Sandrah Hellberg from Mikas. See all images in our portfolio. The lookbook itself can be aquired from modinåkerlind PR agency.
Advertising spring 1, 09
...and Don Donna
From spring 09, BrittonBritton has taken over the marketing also for DonDonna, one of Scandinavia's highest profiled shoe and accessories brands, which opened its first shop here in Stockholm in 1968. Like our clients Rizzo and Accent, DonDonna is part of the Venue Retail Group. Shoes from DonDonna are sold in Rizzo shops, while the accessories collection is available in Accent shops. Our first campaign for DonDonna is photographed by Martin Lidell and styled by Ingela Klemetz Farago. A new campaign will follow later in the spring.
Advertising/shop, spring 2, 09
BrittonBritton takes over Accent
Starting this spring season, BrittonBritton has taken over the marketing account for accessories brand Accent, with 90 shops in Sweden, Norway and Finland. Accent is the brand that is the main focus for the Wedins group, now that Wedins itself has been discontinued as a consumer brand. The group also includes the brands Rizzo, our longtime clients, Don Donna and Norwegian travel goods brand Morris. The Accent collection features all kinds of accessories — bags, gloves, scarves, jewellery, hats and sun glasses, as well as travel goods. BrittonBritton:s engagement will encompass all manners of brand communication.
Our first campaign for Accent is photographed by Martin Lidell and styled by Ingela Klemetz Farago. Two more campaigns by the same team will follow later in the spring.
Rizzo vår 1, 09
Rizzo expands
In times like these, we are especially happy and proud to announce that Rizzo, our dear clients since over five years back, are expanding, opening four new shops, thus increasing the total number of shops to 17 (including the shoes and accessories shops in the NK department stores in Stockholm and Göteborg). Three of the new shops will open in Sweden, on Kungsportsavenyn in Göteborg (20 February), Södergatan in Malmö (March) and Sickla in Stockholm (March), and one in Norway, on Egertorget in Oslo (May). At the same time, we take the opportunity of showing two images from our first spring campaign for Rizzo, photographed once again by Peter Farago and styled by Ingela Klemetz Farago. The model is Åsa Engström.
Vanity of Man. A unique photographic project by Nicho Södling
Vanity of Man
Nicho Södling's unique suite of "fashion portraits" from southwestern Ethiopia are shown for the first time.
From the outset, in 2003, BrittonBritton has been deeply involved in our dear friend and longtime collaborator Nicho Södling's unique photographic project Vanity of Man, which is now showed for the first time, in Abecita corsettfabrik konstmuseum in Borås in southwestern Sweden, 8 February-17 May, with the opening now on Sunday, the 8th. BrittonBritton has designed the graphics for this exhibition, which will visit Stockholm in a smaller scale later this spring. Our firm ambition is that there will be more exhibitions in the future, and, not least, a fantastic book.
It has been something of a disadvantage for Nicho that some people have claimed that they've "seen" this kind of images of "tribes" before, but that is like saying that you've already seen a fashion or a landscape image and that you therefore need not see another. Nicho's images are truly unique in their power beauty and personal presence, in our opinion superior even to "similar" images of completely different tribespeople by immortal master photographers the likes of Irving Penn and Leni Riefenstahl. Claes Britton visited this same remote area, the Omo delta, near the Sudanese border, on an adventurous expedition back in 1989, together with his father. Read Claes press release:
Vanity of Man
Fashion from nothing: unique fashion portraits of people from tribes of the Omo river delta in soutwestern Ethiopia by photographer Nicho Södling.
Time flies, fashion changes, trends come and go. Only our human vanity remains.
Is that really so?
Well, the accute vanity and passionate pre-occupation with personal looks and appaearances was the single most powerful impression that struck Swedish fashion and lifestyle photographer Nicho Södling when he traveled in the remote, previously isolated Omo delta in Southwestern Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border, visiting the tribes of Bena, Karo, Hamer, Surma, Besheda and Mursi - people whose contact with the outside world has been sparse and whose lifestyles in many ways remain much the same as during the Stone Age.
Nicho, whose father is Ethiopian, was taken by how, despite the tremendous cultural differences between these tribespeople and his own Swedish contemporaries, the similarities were even much more apparent - not least in the pure vanity and eagerness to express status and cultural belonging through looks and fashion. In fact, these people, who have very little, seemed if not more obsessed with fashion and looks than ourselves, who have it all. Certainly, their creativity and skills in expressing themselves through their appearances were much greater. No stylist, hair stylist, make-up or tattoo artist could come close to matching the stunning power and beauty of these looks. Our "urban tribes" all appear quite stale, tame and pathetic in comparison.
Nicho Södling has conducted two extensive photographic expeditions through the vast Omo delta, shooting a volumnious suite of portraits of tribespeople. Mostly photographed in classic manner against a white backdrop, all on mid-format celluloid film, his portraits really capture the energy, elegance, pride, urgency, pain and glamour of these looks, allowing the outrageous personal expressions to speak for themselves.
The exhibition at Abectita corsettfabrik konstmuseum in Borås is the first time that Nicho Södling's unique suite of portraits is shown in public, in a series of 52 prints, many in large and some in monumental formats.
For more information about Vanity of Man, please contact BrittonBritton.
Sweden 09, French edition
Out now: Sweden 09!
For the sixth season, BrittonBritton has produced Sweden's as well as Stockholm's annual official tourist catalogues - now in new guises.
For the sixth consecutive year, BrittonBritton has had the honor of producing Sweden's annual official international tourist catalogue, on commission by VisitSweden, the official Swedish tourist agency. It's a 76-page catalogue of quite massive volume, produced in nine different language editions, with partly market adapted contents, and printed in a total circulation of over 700,000 copies. If we, once again, may allow ourselves a moment of self-glorification, it must be said that the catalogues have been extremely successful and that they have at least in some way contributed to the quite radically increasing numbers of international tourists visiting Sweden in recent years. It can also be noted that our neighbouring Nordic countries have been quite inspired by our catalogues, to put it mildly, visually as well as in content, with "chapters" such as city breaks, outdoor & wilderness, fashion & design, gastronomy, shopping, with children, etcetera.
The fall season here at BrittonBritton is quite busy with tourism, since we also, now for the fifth consecutive season, produce Stockholm's official international tourist brochure, commissioned by Stockholm Visitors Board, which is distributed as a supplement in the Sweden catalogue, produced in 13 language editions and printed in a total circulation of over a million.
For this year's editions, we've revamped the design as well as the contents in both the Sweden catalogue and the Stockholm brochure, implementing both clients' new web-adapted graphic profiles (neither designed by BrittonBritton). The Sweden catalogue in its new guise has a more "editorial", personal and even more subjective tone of voice, while the 24-page Stockholm brochure is now a proper instrumental and quite extensive Stockholm guide covering restaurants & cafés, nightlife, sights & attractions, excursions, etcetera.
The Sweden catalogue and the Stockholm brochure can be downloaded and ordered on VisitSweden's and Stockholm Visitor Board's websites.
Wallpaper*’s and Monocle’s already legendary founding editor in chief Tyler Brulé, photographed by Mikael Jansson for our book PA&Co — More than a cookbook (see portfolio)
Tyler tells the truth about Sweden and BrittonBritton
In his Financial Times column, Wallpaper’s and Monocle’s already legendary founding editor in chief Tyler Brulé once again recalls the story of how he first fell in love with Sweden.
It has come to our knowledge that our dear old friend Tyler Brulé once again has written, this time in his Financial Times column, the truthful story of that magic day when he first fell in love with Sweden — an enduring passion which for our country’s brand value can be coined into steadfast pecuniary amounts with numerous zeroes. We’re greatful for this mention (even though the FT editors have turned Claes into Santa — a common confusion which Claus has never really minded, but actually rather endorsed, since Santa is indeed a good and decent, honorable and quite handsome fellow).
It was that day some twelve and a half years ago when Tyler came to visit us at our summer house in Dalarö in the Stockholm Archipelago, after having looked us up in our roles as editors of our magazine Stockholm New (always Tyler’s own favorite), where he showed us the dummy for Wallpaper*, the première issue of which was launched a few months later in London, in our presence. It was one of those splendidly wonderful July days when the archipelago showed its very most irrestistably seductive face. Tyler’s, and his and our dear friend Helen Pippin’s, attractions were instant. We’ll never forget the eagerness and sheer joy with which they threw themselves into those utterly chilly brakish waters — again and again and again and again. So excited were they that they didn’t leave Dalarö in their rental car for the 80 kilometer journey to Stockholm Arlanda airport until little more than an hour before the departure of their plane back to London. Tyler must have stepped down heavily on it, because somehow they made the flight.
Ever since this first visit, and this instant attraction, which Tyler describes beautifully in his text, he and his team have never stopped returning to Stockholm and Sweden. A couple of years later, he bought not merely his own house but his own island in the archipelago, which is the subject for his column. We hooked Tyler and Helen up with Stockholm’s entire small creative community in design, fashion and other related fields. Christina edited the Stockholm supplement published already in the second, or perhaps third, Wallpaper* issue. And so it went. Together, we placed Sweden on a map (that wretched expression...) where it used to be a blank, that’s the simple truth of it, even if humbleness is indeed a virtue. Ever since we started our close to seven-year (and counting...) intermission in the publishing of Stockholm New, Tyler alone has kept on relentlessly promoting our dear homeland, now through his second magazine Monocle. Many people have many opinions about Tyler, as they tend to have of most extremely succesful people. What’s beyond all doubt is that he has long secured his seat of honor there in the pantheon of publishing, as the most influential and trendsetting magazine editor in recent times. Not only lifestyle magazines, but interiors, lifestyles and consumer patterns all around the globe are quite simply different now than they used to be in the pre-Tyler days. We can only take our hats off!